Originally Posted by
readywhenyouare
As far as hubs go I think they stay about the same with the exception of BOS. It isn't profitable at all and serves no real purpose to the network. It was a vanity project to take on B6 and it hasn't paid off. SLC could probably stand to take more cuts with the retirement of the CRJ-200. I doubt some of the SLC only cities could sustain anything larger.
BOS was supposed to be built up as a secondary TATL hub for when they could not add more TATL flights at JFK. Delta has a long history in Boston - the new Terminal A was built for them, but then they declared their 2006 bankruptcy six months after it opened and had to scale back. There is a lot more competition in Boston than some of their other hubs though - B6 is huge and has a following, and AA has a ton of seats to their hubs -- DL took the title of second largest carrier at BOS by passengers carried from AA, but then COVID hit and it's AA again. Then there are a ton of BA flights and quite a few other non-JV European airlines to compete with on the transatlantic route. I do think DL may scale back in Boston, but I think they worked too hard to pull out entirely.
SLC was either #1 or #2 in terms of hub profitability pre-COVID. Routes that can't be flown profitably on anything larger than a 50 seater will definitely be cut, but DL knows they have a good thing going for them with their fortress hubs.
More broadly, what does a restructuring bankruptcy get Delta (or AA or UA)? The last round of bankruptcies allowed the airlines to discharge their pensions onto the PBGC, so there are no pensions left to discharge. DL has only one unionized workgroup (pilots), and owns most of their (older) aircraft. There is the potential of getting out of the 717 leases (held by Boeing Capital I believe -- can be bartered for a new aircraft order), or returning some newer leased aircraft, but that cost savings alone probably is not worth bankruptcy.