April 2025 Passenger, Cargo Traffic at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport

Passenger Activity: Total passenger traffic for April 2025 was 1,755,290, down 6.43% compared to April 2024. April 2025 enplanements totaled 887,601, down 6.51%.

Top three for the month of April:

1--Southwest Airlines passengers totaled 735,021, down 8.6%
2--Delta Air Lines passengers totaled 302,647, up 9%;
3--American Airlines passengers totaled 298,579, down 19.3%

Top three for the year, January thru April:

1--Southwest Airlines passengers totaled 2,653,701, down 6.6%
2--American Airlines passengers totaled 1,112,203, down 22.9%
3--Delta Air Lines passengers totaled 1,026,881, up 13.7%

First month that Delta has surpassed AA and becomes the second largest carrier at AUS. Both Southwest and AA have lost passenger market share every month this year while DL has gained market share every month.

The ABIA plans to offer Delta 15 gates in the BJT terminal - nearly quadrupling their gate presence. The new terminal can be extended to an additional 20 gates, room for a third parallel runway, and additional room for more parallel terminals down the line.

Will we see Delta surpass Southwest after the new terminal is in operation?

I'd really be interested in some analysis of this to see whether this is truly because Delta is a better airline or if it's just because of where Delta is flying.

At the very least, it's a pretty strong data point that flyers choose Delta over AA and, increasingly, WN.

This story argues that much of AA's pullback is related to the pilot's contract and scope clauses for regional jet flying.

https://viewfromthewing.com/the-real...tin-expansion/

I think that has merit, but it's also likely that AA is not all that profitable these days and is choosing to focus on the very strong DFW hub.

UA and WN both already have strong operations elsewhere in Texas, so I expect Delta is taking the opportunity to build its brand in Texas.

It will be interesting to see how the odd ball routes to Midland, McAllen and Harlingen last.

AI claims that Delta will operate up to 55 flights per day this summer out of Austin.

David

I believe HRL was already cut. MAF is likely not far behind fares are ridiculously low and loads look awful. MFE has higher fares (but still pretty low), and no direct competition, so they may be doing okay there.

Stealing market share is great, but I'm betting yields on the non-hub flying are really poor as well, but they're likely looking at a longer horizon for growth so we'll see.

WN has issues. They're losing passengers now that bags aren't free. Now it costs more than the big 3 in a lot of cases. Also the new WN has said will be going away from point to point and doing more hub and spoke style. Basically Im not sure what WN will be in a year or two

AA had to pull back due to pilot scope. They had demand, but not demand for mainline.

DL needs something in TX, so i see AUS becoming that. Right now flying DL from TX to anywhere in Midwest/Central US is basically a non option, has have to fly to MSP/ATL/DTW 1st.

I don�t spend a lot of time following WN, but I�ve had the impression they transformed into a modified hub system maybe 15-20 years ago. Just that they had multiple smaller hubs rather than the mega hubs that the Big 3 have. Eg, I�d consider BWI, MDW, LUV, DEN, OAK (I�m sure others too) to be hubs.

Re what Delta needs to do� I don�t know that they �need� to provide service in the south central US. There�s already tight competition with AA, UA, and WN for much lower population than other regions in the country.

Right now they�re in an interesting place: each plane delivery means they can either start a new route/increase service to an existing route, or retire something old and save on fuel or maintenance costs. So whatever that expansion is, it�s got to be underserved and pretty pricy to fly between.

They have always (or at least a lot longer than 20 years) have had some sort of "hubs". MDW goes way, way back. DAL, obviously, goes back to its beginning. A place like DEN is somewhat newer.
That has been the situation for years. Their marketing to overcome that hasn't worked as well lately.

WN "hub" connecting passengers are in the 20 - 30% range which is still quite a bit less than many legacy carrier hubs. They still largely practice "rational" pricing where shorter non-stops are priced competitively to attract O&D passengers while longer connecting ones are not so much. Compare WN one-way fares on hub hostage BNA-PIT route vs. DL one-way fares on hub hostage MSP-PIT route.

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.

Probably not much more to say than has been discussed in this ongoing thread
Delta upping Austin's "Focus City" Status (new routes)

I remember the thinking Delta was going to mop up Alaska in SEA with their new hub. At last count, AS has 49% market share DL 20%. And now Delta is all of a sudden going to ride into AUS and takeover the place, SWA, UA and AA is just going to roll over? AUS is not going to make up for the horrible business decision of closing the DFW hub and its brand recognition in Texas.

Love the Club in Austin though, its quiet first thing in the morning.

Shame to read about HRL, I was going to take advantage of those $98 RT fares.

I�ve been seeing AUS pop up as a connection city in more and more flight searches lately, but with extremely uncomfortable short connections. If it�s missed, it�ll easily add an extra segment to �get back in the system� (such as to ATL) to get to the city that has one flight a day to/from AUS.

Of the business decisions they may have regretted, I am not sure this is one of them.

AA is actively retreating in AUS, not because of Delta - and United has no stake in Austin. WN is losing market share via wanting to charge that of a legacy but be a LCC (it doesn�t work). I would bet by the time the new terminal comes up in AUS Delta will end up becoming #1 in the city.

Secondly, DL doesn�t need to push AS out of SEA. SEA is a peg in Delta grand network, while it�s all Alaska really has. Delta�s ATL hub alone likely profits multitudes over Alaska�s entire network/operation. All to say, Delta doesn�t need to �conquer� SEA - just use it as an Asian gateway. AS has also been there over 7 decades and Delta about a quarter of that. In that time Delta has risen to 20% despite an entrenched competitor and AS fallen from 51 to 49% (marginal). These things take time, but I for one don�t believe the combined AS+HA will make a difference for AS - their intl. network plans will be extremely slim margins.

Delta absolutely wants a TX presence. It was DFW. But, they consolidated operations in ATL and having DL�s ATL is more valuable than any TX hub - so I don�t think they regret it. An ATL + AUS combo compliments nicely. Alleviate ATL congestion/make room for growth, offer west of Mississippi River connections, capture the fastest growing city (past several years) O&D, and offer a better Latin America gateway.

I agree DL will almost certainly grow at AUS, but I'd push back on a few things:

At SEA, Alaska + Horizon had ~52% domestic share vs DL’s ~15% (incl. regionals) when DL hubbed it in 2014 (BTS). In 2024, it’s ~57.5% for AS vs ~24% for DL (Port of Seattle). Including intl, it’s 52.4% vs 24.1%. So DL has grown ~10 pts, but that happened mostly during 2015–2018. Since 2021, DL's share has flatlined—and AS grew too. With AS adding more intl service (and possible OW JV participation per JAL comments), DL loses its SEA long-haul edge and faces a scale issue—AS already has 2.5x the capacity. That kind of imbalance is exactly what hurts AA vs UA at ORD.

At AUS, AA, UA, WN, and DL have all requested more gates—even AA wants 9 total. But only 20 new gates are confirmed, and the AUS authority has suggested they prefer a ~40-35-20 split in passenger traffic: two main carriers, others sharing the rest (source, use archive.ph to view). This is still a 2.5M MSA, not a premium yield market vs a DFW or IAH. Pop. growth is strong but no longer exponential.

International O&D hasn’t proven robust—KLM and LH still aren’t daily despite starting service in 2021 and 2019. Virgin pulled out of LHR, and Latin America demand is mostly weak leisure. Unlike SAT, IAH, or DFW, AUS doesn’t have strong VFR demand to Mexico. Outside of tourist routes and CDMX, AUS lacks service to major Mexican cities like GDL, MEX regionals, QRO, or MTY - SAT offers 7 unserved regional Mexico destinations and full-year mainline CDMX service vs AUS. Plus, all of SAT, IAH, and DFW have big expansions underway currently too.

DL will grow, but AUS is more likely a long-term battleground than a DL stronghold. Worth noting: DL’s Boston playbook worked—matching B6 in size—but Seattle hasn’t. DL’s RASM there is among the lowest in its network (Cranky), and execs like Scott Kirby have outright said SEA is likely unprofitable for DL (Omaat).