Delta Airlines flights to Portugal full for the summer

The US’s Delta Air Lines has never seen so much demand for flights to Portugal according to its sales director for Europe.

Delta, one of the largest in the world, has put on more flights to Portugal to meet the growing demand for both holidaymakers and visits for business and personal reasons, and now has an seat takeup rate from Boston and New York of 90% according to Paul Hassenstab, Director of Sales for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India (EMEAI).

Speaking to the business daily Negócios, he said there had been significant demand from Americans for Europe, including Portugal, with an expectation that demand would remain.

The Delta boss said that Portugal was a “success story” since it launched operations in 2017 after an absence in the market.

In 2017, it operated a narrow body aircraft service to New York, and from 2019 began flights to Boson in similar one-aisle jets. Now the airline operates wide-body flights to Portugal.

Delta currently has 14 weekly round-trip flights to Portugal from New York and Boston (It’s main hubs), and since being launched five years ago, its Boston route has carried over 235,000 passengers, most of them from the US. Paul Hassenstab also said that Massachusetts had a large Portuguese-American community.

Delta, which in 2008 merged with Northwest Airlines, operates daily flights from Lisbon, but to other Portuguese airports such as Porto and Faro, it operates onward flights in partnership with Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic, the latter of which it holds a 49% share. For the moment it has no plans for direct flights to either Porto or Faro.