RealHJ

Does DL even have the fleet to do so? DL has shrunk its fleet considerably last year. Many routes it has cut completely and there's no flights to end of schedules (HNL-KIX, NGO, FUK come to mind, as do the what used to be 10+ daily NRT flights (4 x HNL-NRT alone), while what was at HND even pre-pandemic was a sorry shadow of DL of years past at NRT). Probably many of the stations are shut down and everyone is fired. In fact, I've heard that a few times over the years from various DL station staff, how DL likes to give next to no advance notice (only a few weeks) of shutting it down and firing everyone, without giving courtesy of notice and helping their staff find new jobs. Over 2020 DL probably let that machine go into overdrive (as was to be expected, of course), making the non-US staff pay the bulk of the price (again, as was not unexpected).

For each route DL has added it has removed a few, and now of course there's next to nothing operating or even in schedules.

I think that post-pandemic it'll be fewer int'l flights, much higher prices, and to get to a country/airport it'll be often just the flag carrier that flies there (as, well, they have to), with other airlines (like DL) being very slow and conservative at (re-)adding/establishing routes.