This Is Exactly How Airlines Choose New Routes

When you go to book a flight, there are some nonstop routes you expect to find every time. New York to Los Angeles, for example, or perhaps Chicago to Miami. But when you're considering both smaller domestic airports as well as major and minor international ones, your travel plans from A to B might include a layover or two. So, what goes into airlines' route planning?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot. Route offerings are not static, and they often change throughout the year — many airlines operate seasonal routes to accommodate travel trends. In the summer, for instance, many airlines amp up European route offerings, whether adding new cities or additional flights on established routes. And it all comes down to a team crunching all sorts of numbers to figure out which routes are not only in demand, but also profitable.

A Delta spokesperson tells Travel + Leisure that five main factors go into the selection process for new routes: demand, competitive positioning, operational feasibility, strategic value, and financial performance. And they're all very much interconnected, with the thresholds for each varying per route.

Demand is pretty straightforward — how many people want or need to fly this route? It's not likely that you'll see nonstop flights between Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania and Roswell Air Center in New Mexico, since there are not many people looking to fly that route regularly (or so we suspect). If you do need to fly between those destinations, airlines can get you there, but you'll probably need to take a layover.

Most U.S. airlines operate via the hub-and-spoke model, where you fly from a regional airport down a "spoke" to a hub airport, then from that hub airport down a different "spoke" to another regional airport. (Yes, picture a wagon wheel.) Smaller airlines might operate a point-to-point model that connects smaller airports directly, but those flights are still subject to demand. Often you'll find them flying from regional airports to popular vacation destinations like Florida.

Competitive positioning refers to an airline's standing among its competitors: in this case, on specific routes. If one airline flies a certain route regularly, will another airline be able to tap into that market? In some cases, there are plenty of passengers to go around, like those flying from London to New York. But it's up to an airline's route-planning team to figure out if they can compete successfully.

Operational feasibility takes into consideration the logistics of operating a route, such as the availability of aircraft and crew. Some particularly congested airports are subject to capacity restrictions, too; these have a slot system that permits airlines a certain number of takeoffs and landings per day. But operational feasibility also has to do with other governmental regulations, particularly for international destinations. "International routes planning, especially for a new destination, can be more complicated as we need to factor in the foreign point-of-sale demand trajectory and all the regulatory constraints for that country," a Delta spokesperson tells T+L.

Strategic value concerns a route's role in an airline's overall network, both in the short term and the long term. Even if demand for a certain route might be somewhat weak, an airline may choose to fly that route with the goal of the route becoming more in demand over time. And destinations themselves can also come into play here — some local governments may lobby for specific routes to drum up tourism, offering incentives like a big marketing push to drive ticket sales.

Finally, financial performance is pretty self-explanatory. Analysts must determine whether or not a route will turn a healthy profit, considering factors like ticket prices, load capacity, and operational costs.

Sound like a lot of work? It is! Route planning is constantly in motion with airlines. Between 2015 and 2019, Delta averaged about 50 new routes per year, and on the flip side, it suspended about 38 per year. "Delta is always planning one to five years out by networking and monitoring the market dynamics closely," says the spokesperson. "But we are also nimble on our network planning to best meet the customers' needs."

So, the next time you search for flights, think about all the work that went into planning the specific route you're booking.