On December 1, Delta Air Lines took off from New York JFK to Lagos, having last served the 4,562 nautical mile (8,449 km) airport pair back in October 2022.
In the year to July 2024 (when Delta did not operate the route), 58,000 people flew indirectly between the two airports. It was JFK's fourth-largest African point-to-point market after Cairo (168,000), Accra (88,000), and Casablanca (77,000).
Delta's return to JFK-Lagos is notable in multiple ways, including:
- It is the only airline serving Lagos from Greater NYC (United operates from Washington Dulles)
- It is the first time Delta has had six African nonstop routes (its previous high was five)
- Delta has more African flights in December 2024 than in any prior festive month, with a fifth more services than the previous December record held in 2010
- It has more services than any prior month in the past 14 or so years
- JFK-Lagos has a record daily frequency, up from the previous high of three times weekly
- Delta has two Nigerian routes for the first time in 26 months
- When added to Atlanta-Lagos, it has a double daily operation, the highest frequency ever
- When United is included, US-Lagos has 91 monthly departures in December, smashing the prior record of 75
Delta first began the route in March 2018. It operated until March 2020, when the pandemic caused it to pause. It returned in July 2021 and ran until October 2022.
Now it is back, with the daily service deploying the low-capacity, 223-seat Airbus A330-200. N851NW had the honor of operating the first roundtrip in 2024. It reduces to three times weekly in March, with the last scheduled flight from the US being on March 27 (for now).
Delta has fewer A330-200s than any other widebody type or variant in its fleet. All of them have the same layout, as shown below:
- 34 seats in Delta One
- 21 in Premium Select
- 24 in Comfort+
- 144 in Main Cabin
It is scheduled as follows, with all times local:
- JFK-Lagos: DL298, 15:33-07:35+1 (10h 02m block time)
- Lagos-JFK: DL299, 09:35-15:35 (12h)
Before the pandemic in 2019, when Delta served JFK-Lagos three times weekly year-round, the US Department of Transportation T-100 shows that it carried 62,392 passengers. Relating the traffic figure to booking data indicates that approximately:
- 58% of passengers connected to another flight in JFK (the top 10 origins and destinations are shown below)
- 37% were point-to-point (they only traveled between the two airports)
- 4% of passengers who originated/ended in JFK connected to another flight in Lagos
- 1% of passengers transferred to another service in JFK and Lagos
With 72,497 seats for sale, it had an 86% load factor. Of course, this says nothing about fares and yields, but the rise to a record daily offering clearly shows it must have been sufficiently strong.
In December, the SkyTeam member's African network is as follows. It has up to six daily departures.
- Atlanta-Cape Town: three times weekly A350-900
- Atlanta-Lagos: daily A330-200
- Atlanta-Johannesburg: daily A350-900
- JFK-Accra: daily A330neo
- JFK-Dakar: five times weekly 767-300ER
- JFK-Lagos: daily A330-200
