- Delta Air Lines will open nine new gates on October 5 in Terminal 3 at LAX.
- Delta has no intention of giving up its LAX passenger lead over American and United.
Delta Air Lines emerged from the pandemic as the new frontrunner at Los Angeles International Airport and the world's second largest airline has no intention of giving up its growing passenger lead over American and United at the second largest airport in the U.S.
Delta just opened open nine new gates at LAX's Terminal 3 on Wednesday as part of a $2.3 billion Delta Sky Way expansion. When completed in 2023, the renovation project will consolidate LAX's Terminals 2 and 3 into a single complex with 27 Delta gates.
Part of the Delta expansion opened in April – including a centralized check-in lobby, expanded security checkpoint and refreshed baggage claim. The new Delta Sky Club – one of the carrier's largest – is already bustling.
One key feature: An escalator just steps from the new gates will take arriving passengers directly to baggage claim. No more following endless signs through the airport to get your suitcase.
On the green side of things, the environmentally-conscious new terminal features a "cool roof" designed to reduce the heat island effect and conserve energy use.
There's still more to come. The Delta One check-in area for first class flyers on international flights is coming in Spring 2023 to LAX while the 10,000-square-foot Delta One Club will debut in 2024.
Delta clearly hopes more LAX gates translates to more passengers and helps pad its already sizable lead over rivals American and United at the airport.
"We weren't able to grow before. We were constrained in a smaller terminal," Delta's head of sales Scott Santoro said. "Now we have the room and the space to grow."
LAX is massive by any standard, ranking as one of the largest airports in the US by most measures. LAX is also one of the most competitive in the US with Delta, American, United, Southwest, Alaska, JetBlue, and Spirit all vying for market share.
Delta's LAX passenger lead is fragile with the airline's share of the LAX market down by nearly two percentage points compared to last year during the January-August period, according to airport data. Fortunately for Delta, American's LAX market share has also dropped by four percentage points during the same period – allowing Delta to remain the top airline at LAX for 2021 and 2022.
That hasn't always been the case. Delta was LAX's perennial number two behind American from 2016 to 2020.
"We made a commitment 10 years ago that we're going to be the largest global premium carrier in Los Angeles. Today we're delivering on that," Santoro told Insider during an interview at LAX. "Over the summer of '20 and really into '21 we took first place."
The top LAX airlines still have a lot of ground to make up since the COVID-19 pandemic downturn. Like all carriers, Delta is still trying to recover with 8.6 million passengers at LAX so far in 2022 compared to 15.3 million in 2019 during the same period – when Delta was a distant second to American (17.2 million) and had a healthy lead over United (12.6 million).
For now, Delta has a 1 million-plus passenger lead over American at LAX from January to August 2022, according to airport data. That's good enough for 19.9% of the LAX market – which would assure victory for Delta in most years if the numbers hold for the rest of 2022.
"We want to win badly. Delta likes to win. Our people like to win," Santoro said. "Combined I think it's just a great formula to win here in Los Angeles."