In the past 20 years, Delta Air Lines has served 322 destinations nonstop from its Atlanta hub. That finding is based on examining its full schedule using Cirium Diio information.
In addition to being the world's busiest airport, Atlanta is the US's fourth largest fortress hub, with Delta having 78% of December flights.
Some 223 of the 322 destinations are served now or will be next year. They include Brussels, which returns in June, last flown in 2020, and Naples, new to the Georgia hub's network and its fourth Italian city.
This means 99 destinations have been removed from the airline's route network in the past two decades. Barbados and Puerto Plata are no longer included, as both have returned to the airline's Atlanta map.
The 99 eliminations are shown on both the map and, below that, listed in order of the last year of service. They include Brasília, Fortaleza, Dubai, Kuwait, Manaus, Mumbai, and Recife.
In the past 20 years, the 99 destinations had 296,000 departures from Atlanta (double for both ways) on Delta mainline and Delta Connection equipment.
For completeness, the list includes airports that have since closed and where the service has simply switched from one airport to another serving the same city (e.g., Tokyo Narita to Haneda and London Gatwick to Heathrow).
International airports are in bold. Some places, such as Manchester and Copenhagen, are now flown by a partner instead, but Delta's own frames are no longer used.
Many airports have been entirely removed from Delta's network, not just Atlanta. In several instances, a destination that lost Atlanta flights regained them later.
For example, Delta operated Atlanta-Tel Aviv until 2011, only for it to return in 2023 and end that same year. For straightforwardness, only the most recent exit date is shown.
The following list only includes destinations removed since 2004.
- 2005: Beaumont/Port Arthur
- 2006: Champaign, Hickory
- 2007: Binghampton, Bonaire, Erie, Huntington, Kinston, Marathon, Merida, Naples (Florida), Pinehurst, Ponce, Trenton, Wilmington (Delaware), Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo
- 2008: Atlantic City, Corpus Christi, Fort-de-France, Islip, Kuwait, Macon, Pointe-à-Pitre, Queretaro, Shannon, Toledo, Vienna
- 2009: Dakar, Lawton, Mumbai, Recife, Stockholm Arlanda
- 2010: Fortaleza, Gunnison, Panama City (Florida; airport closed), Port of Spain, Tobago, Tupelo
- 2011: Copenhagen, Florence (South Carolina), Lynchburg, Manaus, Moscow Sheremetyevo, Prague
- 2012: Acapulco, Accra, Guayaquil, Lewisburg, London Gatwick, McAllen, Meridian, Muscle Shoals, Stewart
- 2013: Billings, Columbia (Missouri), Halifax
- 2014: Calgary
- 2015: Brasília, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Manchester (UK), Saginaw/Bay City
- 2016: Dubai, Medellín, State College
- 2017: Caracas, Leon/Guanajuato, Ottawa
- 2018: Killeen, Lisbon
- 2019: Elmira, Freeport, Santiago (Dominican Republic)
- 2020: Akron-Canton, Flint, Fort Smith, Grenada, Havana, Lincoln, Managua, Manchester (New Hampshire), New Bern, Newport News, Peoria, Port-au-Prince, Shanghai Pudong, Tegucigalpa Toncontín, Tokyo Narita, Vancouver, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
- 2021: Bangor (only a dozen or so flights; it was properly served until 2008), Kalispell-Glacier, Missoula, Rapid City
- 2022: Rochester (Minnesota)
- 2023: Düsseldorf, Tel Aviv
- 2024: Stuttgart, Traverse City
Since 2004, Newport News, Akron-Canton, and Flint collectively had 81,000 takeoffs from Atlanta. Regional jets operated between 61% and 83% of the flights, with the MD88 being the most common mainline machine.
Influenced by other nearby airports, the trio of cities has been removed from Delta's entire network.
- Atlanta-Newport News: served from August 2003 until May 2020. It had up to nine (!) daily services in 2008 and 2009
- Atlanta-Akron Canton: served from September 2001 (that fateful month) until May 2020. A high of six daily flights existed at times in 2006, 2007, and 2009
- Atlanta-Flint: served from September 2003 until July 2020. In 2006, 2007, and 2009, it had up to six daily takeoffs
