Los Angeles is the second-largest city in the United States (after NYC) and needs no introduction. It's airport - Los Angeles International Airport - is perhaps one of only a handful of airports known internationally by its IATA code (LAX) - although some of Detla's top flights are to John Wayne Airport.
By some measures, Delta Air Lines is the largest airline in the United States, and it commands the largest market share at LAX at 19.76% (although not enough to be dominant).
According to data provided by Cirium (an aviation data analytics company), these are the busiest routes to Los Angeles.
California has numerous large cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco/Bay Area, San Diego, and others), with the two largest being Los Angeles and San Francisco/Bay Area.
It is no accident that the (much-delayed) California High-Speed Rail is being built to link these two cities (and will be one of the only places in the United States to have high-speed rail).
Therefore, it may come as a surprise that Delta's busiest route to Los Angeles is not from San Francisco but from its massive hub at Atlanta (Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport).
This route has 325 monthly flights scheduled for November, with a total of 69,611 seats.
The second-busiest route is also not from SFO but from New York's JFK airport, with 296 monthly flights and 66,003 seats (making it a relatively close second). In third place, Salt Lake City International Airport has 194 monthly flights and 35,407 seats.
Finally, San Francisco comes in ever-so-slightly behind Salt Lake City with 193 monthly flights and 31,853 seats (suggesting the flights used on this route are smaller with less capacity). In fifth place is Seattle, with 182 November flights and 33,042 seats (more seats than from SFO).
Rounding out the top ten list of busiest Delta routes to Los Angeles is Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport with 177 flights and 32,862 seats, San Jose International Airport with 163 flights and 12,118 seats, Sacramento International Airport with 153 flights and 11,424 seats, Detroit Metropolitan Airport with 148 flights and 31,413 seats (about the same capacity as from SFO), and Salt Lake City to John Wayne Airport (another Los Angeles area airport).
Other busy routes are Las Vegas with 137 flights, Phoenix with 134 flights, Portland with 139 flights, Seattle to John Wayne Airport with 112, Orlando with 103, and Boston with 100 flights.
According to OAG, Los Angeles (LAX) to San Francisco (SFO) was the busiest domestic air route in the United States in 2019 before the pandemic. However, in 2023, it had fallen to 6th place with 3.1 million seats, representing a 33% decrease in capacity when compared to 2019.
The busiest US routes in 2023 were Honolulu to Kahului (with 3.6 million seats) followed by Atlanta to Orlando (with 3.5 million seats).
