Delta Airlines will begin flying out of the Midland International Air & Space Port starting April 22.
It will have three flights a day from Midland to Austin.
Some of the factors that led to Delta’s return are that the Basin was the largest Texas market that was not served by Delta outside of the Rio Grande Valley and it was ranked fastest-growing economy among the 100 largest U.S. midsize cities (by Kenan Institute’s American Growth Project), Delta confirmed in an email.
The key driver is the petroleum industry as Midland is home to its corporate offices and Odessa home to its industrial facilities. It is also the closest airport to Big Bend National Park.
Director of Airports Justine Ruff said the airline is planning to be in Midland for the “long haul.”
They had a five-year contract with the airport in the early 2000s, but backed out after nine months.
“They were supposed to stay five years last time … We did a five-year contract with them and we held them to it. But you know what? They say they’re planning to be here for the long haul. They’re trying to build up their traffic out of Austin. They’re trying to make it a hub, so they’re starting Midland and McAllen same day to kind of bring more passengers into Austin where they can make easy connections to get to the other places Delta flies,” Ruff said.
When the airline was in Midland before, it only had flights to DFW, Ruff said.
The jets used will be regional jets like American and United fly. Southwest flies full-size jets.
Ruff said getting Delta back is great.
“It offers more service for our customers,” she added.
Delta contacted the Midland airport about coming back on a Wednesday and said they were going to announce it that Friday that they were going to sell tickets out of Midland.
“Usually, airports reach out to airlines, or the airline will reach out and say, hey, we’re looking into expanding to your area. Do you have room for us and it leads to a negotiation, but not this time, which is okay,” Ruff said.
She added that it’s going to be a lot of work in the next few months, but it presents new options for passengers.
“And hopefully, people will fly and they’ll do well and that will expand their service, possibly,” Ruff said.
Contract negotiations and logistics have to be settled and the airline will have to bring computers in.
“They have to bring radios in to put on the roof to talk to the aircraft. It’s not physically talking, but it’s a communication method that they use. All the airlines have antennas up on the roof that they use. It’s just the logistics of getting it done. We’ll get it done,” Ruff said.
The airport has some empty ticket space that they have called the Delta space for the last 20 years because that’s where they were before and Ruff said that’s the space Delta is returning to.
They have shell ticket counters that look the same as everyone else’s and then the airlines put in their inserts.
“We already have the shells, and they’ll just make an insert that fits in there,” Ruff said.
There may be some shuffling of jet bridges. Midland International has six jet bridges, which are the little bridges that go to the airplanes, and two ground loads where passengers go down the stairs, onto the ramp and climb up the stairs.
Speaking of passengers, the number of people flying airlines out of Midland International Air & Space Port increased in December by 24.24% compared to a year earlier.
The 61,716 passengers dwarfed the 49,675 from December 2022 and pushed the total during the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2024 to 184,925 — a 12.42% increase compared to the first quarter of a record-breaking FY 2023, a news release said.
Southwest Airlines carried the largest share of passengers, with around 50% of the total in December. Southwest, United, and American Eagle all fly into and out of Midland. In December, the City of Midland announced that Delta will become the fourth airline to provide service, beginning on April 22.
The release said parking revenue at Midland International Air & Space Port increased 13.54% in December compared to December 2022. The $612,779 in net parking revenue increased the fiscal year-to-date total to $1.977 million, a 13.38% increase compared to the first quarter of FY 2023.
The City Council this week passed a resolution authorizing the airport to ask for a loan of the Windecker Eagle from the Air and Space Museum in Washington to hang in the Midland airport terminal.
“The Windecker Eagle was the first composite aircraft approved by the FAA and it was manufactured here by two dentists,” Ruff said.
It was the end of the 1970s, so things had slowed down in the Basin. They manufactured some of the planes and the military took one.
“It was kind of the start of the stealth bomber because it was composite instead of metal so it didn’t show up on radar,” Ruff said.
The National Air and Space Museum website says the Eagle was the product of several years of experimentation by Dr. Leo Windecker and Dr. Fairfax Windecker, working with Dow Chemical Company, to develop lightweight fiberglass reinforced plastic structures for aviation use. A flexible, non-woven glass fiber material called “Fibaloy” was the result and led to the Windecker X-7 prototype.
For more information, visit https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/windecker-eagle-i/nasm_A19850619000
