Originally Posted by
Bear96
I don't disagree that that sounds logical. But if that were the case, shouldn't it show up in the statistics? Meaning that over time, DL's flight cancellation / delay rates should be meaningfully worse than the other big US network carriers with hub structures, namely UA and AA (to compare apples to apples), but I don't think that is the case.
Agreed, but to be fair, hub makeup and selection are probably one aspect. Maintenance, labor issues, overall scheduling and ops efficiency also play roles in this. As pointed out above, DL’s ATL ops allow for frequent airframe subs.
ATL has held an advantage in its overall layout (5 parallel runways and terminals laid out in a parallel midfield scheme) that are matched by few other airports (DEN, DFW, IAD, DTW, and more recently ORD (although their terminal layout remains problematic for ramp congestion)).