Has Delta cancelled OAK-ATL?
 

Hi, does anyone know why the OAK-ATL service seems to have disappeared from Delta's schedules starting today?

I couldn't find any articles or mentions of the service being cancelled.

But if it's true, after they inexplicably cancelled OAK-LAX last year, it means that east bay to most east coast airports now need 2 connections.

Looks like it comes back 4x in late May then daily the week of June 7th. A few weeks in September it's less than daily.

Ah, thanks. I wonder if it wasn't selling? I guess there are other factors..The OAK-LAX E175/190 flights were usually full and I never understood why they dropped it..

For east bay people, SFO is a poor substitute. on a bad traffic day even SMF can be closer.

I’m guessing the dropped OAK-LAX route is in part due to the construction mess that’s going on down there as T3 basically gets rebuilt. Since the flight was dropped, my decent upgrade percentage on OAK-SLC flights as an FO have shot down drastically!

The OAK-ATL flights being scaled back to seasonal is a bit annoying because at one point it was announced as a year round route. But it’s also not that appealing to me as a red eye flight, unless it’s the only option I have. In most cases I’d prefer to take a morning flight to the east coast if possible, usually leaving me only options routing via SLC or starting in SFO. (Again the early morning OAK-LAX flights used to be perfect for this sort of thing!)

Makes perfect sense, because people inexplicably love WN. I know quite a few people in CA with status on major carriers (or that could have status with major carriers), but they all still prefer WN intra-CA even when they have direct flights available with airline they have status with. A full flight does not necessarily mean a profitable flight.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this flight eventually gets cancelled. I flew on this flight back towards the end of August on a Monday and it was no where close to full and everyone on the UG list cleared into FC. The agent who I checked in with at OAK says that it usually goes out with empty seats.

Instead of SFO, would SJC work as a substitute for OAK for some East Bay people, especially those living fairly far south of Oakland? The downside of course is no BART service, although BART to OAK is a bit of a hassle too.

This flight seems to be on, off, on, off every other year. It's a little hard for a single (sporadic) red eye to compete with the 7-10 daily frequencies on DL at SFO. The story of all the struggling/nonexistent service at OAK.

I suppose I'm one of those WN intra-CA people (though to be fair, that's mostly because SNA, ONT, and LGB are closer to my final destination than LAX, and DL doesn't serve those direct from northern CA).

However, the OAK-LAX flights were well timed for connecting flights in LAX (and DL's network & partners give them the advantage over WN here), not just for O/D traffic. I don't necessarily know what the breakdown of connecting vs. O/D traffic made up these flights though.

This seems to be the one and only ATL-CA route that Delta can’t make work. I’ve flown this a number of times... very low yields (good for me), and it seems like 70% of the plane is flying BE.

Is OAK a generally low yield airport, for all carriers? I associate it with a heavy presence of LCCs and not many amenities like lounges.

AS makes a bunch of money on their Hawaii flights. They fly OAK to every island, though KOA and LIH are not daily. That said, they don't make much cash on their PDX flights, for instance. It will be interesting to see what the WN-to-HI thing does to their yields on Hawaii.

By and large, OAK is not a cash cow. UA doesn't fly there at all, AA only does OAK-PHX if I recall correctly, and well here we are discussing DL. People traveling into the city use SFO, and the Silicon Valley uses SJC. OAK seems to be leisure heavy and price sensitive.

I am one of the Californians who uses WN a lot for the exact reason stated above...nonstops and high frequencies to the secondary LA airports and tremendous frequencies on SAN routes. There is a SAN-SMF flight every hour most days, compared to AS 3x a day. I also fly WN to BOI, SEA and PDX quite a bit though less than before since their frequencies are repressed out of SMF.

I think OAK is also a casualty of delta proclaiming SJC is a "focus city" and Delta operating 3x/daily on SJC-ATL (not to mention 1x daily SJC-JFK) which gives it good coverage for flights to the east coast from the bay area. SJC is only an hour from OAK, even with rush hour traffic and Delta seems to be steering everyone to avoid flying out of Oakland.

Just as an FYI there are 3 morning ferries from Oakland/Alameda to South San Francisco with a free connecting shuttle to SFO - https://sanfranciscobayferry.com/sfo-shuttle

There will be BART service to San Jose "any day now" (for the last year or so). But even without BART, SJC can be a better option for East Bay folks, particularly south of Oakland.