HRL is cut but they are doubling down on MFE. As David said above, AA pulling out of AUS was so to scope violation and likely AA canibalizing some of their DFW traffic. DFW & AUS way too close to have dual hub/focus cities in. AA also doesn’t have the A220 flex fleet to keep RJ-style flying within mainline. Side note: the revenue loss on any RJ-flying like MFE or HRL is so small and probably outweighed by people deciding to give AMEX a shot and become a DL FF - this strategy pays off.

Delta wanted to push into AUS 2019 but COVID happened. Just this past year-or-two, Delta has just started its AUS build-up. The intra-TX is likely a way to deploy some assets, experiment, and gate squat until larger aircraft or routes are available. I believe, what we’ll see is more P2P routes being added at low frequency (gate space severely limited) as this will grow the Delta FF base until new terminal in 2030 is complete.

With 15 gates Delta can push a 150+ daily departure operation. More P2P with ideally x3 departure banks to push viable connections through Austin: AUS will alleviate ATL connections, are ideal for Delta FF west of the Mississippi River, gives DL market access to TX’ booming economy (AUS being the “boomiest”) and maybe the return of more intra-TX/routes to competitor hubs (DEN, PHX, etc..) near the end of the build-up. DL will need to serve a a good handful of intra-TX if they want to be viable for Texans in general.