Delta Air Lines likely will not add much capacity for the rest of this year after it finishes planned growth this summer, CEO Ed Bastian said in a memo to employees.
Bastian said the carrier has seen "slow but steady increases in passenger volumes" in the first two weeks of the summer season, and Delta plans to add 1,000 flights in July and another 1,000 in August. Revenue, however, likely will be only a quarter of what Delta made last year, and with "normal" still two years away, "we are unlikely to add many more flights for the remainder of the year beyond what we had in August," he said.
Delta also has expanded Covid-19 virus and antibody testing for employees beyond Minneapolis, where it launched earlier this month, to Atlanta, according to Bastian. Testing will begin in Detroit and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport next week and in New York's LaGuardia Airport the following week, he said.
Like other carriers, Delta has cracked down on compliance to the passenger mask requirement, and Bastian noted that some passengers already have been banned from future travel on Delta because they refused to wear masks. However, there only have been "a handful of cases" so far in which passengers refused to wear masks.