The new service from Delta, Dayton’s busiest carrier, will benefit business travelers, said Terrence G. Slaybaugh, Dayton’s director of aviation. Business customers account for about 60 percent of the Dayton airport’s passenger traffic.
Delta’s current service from Dayton includes daily flights to Atlanta, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The new Dayton-New York service is part of a massive expansion of flight service from LaGuardia that Delta announced Friday. It is a result of a swap concluded this week that gives Delta additional takeoff and landing slots at LaGuardia and US Airways additional slots at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. In return, Delta reduces its presence at Reagan National and US Airways reduces its service at LaGuardia.
US Airways currently offers three daily flights from Dayton to LaGuardia on 50-seat regional jets. US Airways hasn’t said how, or whether, the swap transaction will affect that service.
US Airways said it won’t make any changes in its flight service until late March, and then implement further changes in mid-July.
Delta said its expansion of service in New York will add about 100 new flights and 29 new destinations from LaGuardia. Delta said that, by summer 2012, it will operate 264 daily flights between LaGuardia and more than 60 cities.
It will enable Delta to better compete with its biggest rivals. Delta is adding Miami and Dallas, both American Airlines hubs. It will also fly to Houston and Denver, both hubs of United Airlines, and Charlotte, N.C., a hub of US Airways.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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