Delta will make Rome its 9th European route from Boston
Rome will become Delta's newest destination out of its fast-growing Boston hub.
Flights begin May 21 and will operate seasonally until Sept. 8. During that period, Delta will offer one daily round-trip flight on 293-seat Airbus A330 aircraft.
Delta will become the third carrier offering nonstop service between Boston (BOS) and Rome (FCO), joining SkyTeam partner Alitalia and European discount giant Norwegian. Delta's Rome flights appear to be timed to complement Alitalia's service. Delta's Rome departure from Boston leaves at 5 p.m. and lands in Italy at 7:15 a.m. Alitalia's departs Boston at 9:50 p.m. and lands at 11:50. On the return, Delta's departure leaves Rome at 10:45 a.m. (lands at 2:15 p.m.) while Alitalia's leaves at 3:05 p.m. (lands at 6:25 p.m.).
Delta's new transatlantic offering from Boston comes amid a broader ramp-up of service there and a slew of new routes during the past few years. Delta is on track to increase its year-over-year seating capacity from Boston by more than 15%, adding new routes to destinations such as Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Lisbon (LIS), Miami (MIA) and Washington Reagan National (DCA), among others.
Delta's growth there led the company to declare in June that Boston had becomes its newest hub.
Related: Can Delta and JetBlue Make Boston the Next Dual-Hub City?
In doing so, Delta has upped competition with Boston's busiest carrier: JetBlue. The airlines now appear to locked in a battle for market supremacy there.
As for its new Boston-Rome service, Delta announced the flights during a press event at Boston Logan on Monday as it officially assumed operation of all the gates in Terminal A. That, Delta says, makes it "the terminal's sole operator for the first time since the facility opened in 2005."
Delta used the occasion to tout its international reach from Boston.
"From offering more international seats out of Boston than any other carrier to being the only airline at Logan with a fully dedicated terminal, we're continuing to set ourselves apart for customers in ways that only Delta and our nearly 2,000 Boston-based Delta people can," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement accompanying the news.
Related: Sayonara, Narita: The Rise and Fall of Delta's Tokyo Hub
Both Delta and JetBlue fly nonstop from Boston to numerous destinations in the Caribbean and Central America. But Delta flies to nine airports in Europe, something that JetBlue does not – though it plans to begin flying to London sometime in 2021.
Delta's other transatlantic offerings from Boston include Amsterdam, Dublin, Lisbon, Edinburgh, London Gatwick (begins 2020), London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and the English city of Manchester (begins 2020).
A Monday-afternoon spot check of Delta's website showed that it appeared to be charging a premium for its nonstop service, so much so that a glitch may have been responsible for the extremely high fares we saw.
A June 4-9 round-trip booked at Delta's website returned a main-cabin fare of $5,529 – just a few hundred dollars less than the $6,024 fare for Delta One on the same dates.
Connecting fares for the same dates were going for as little as $851 in Basic Economy or $3,827 in business class on flights operated by Air France via Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG).
A second spot-check of Delta's website for nonstop BOS-FCO flights for an Aug. 6-11 itinerary returned similar fares as the first: $5,629 for main cabin seats or $5,827 for Delta One.
For customers hoping to use SkyMiles, a Monday afternoon spot-check for an Aug. 5-11 itinerary showed Delta's BOS-FCO nonstops available for either 260,000 miles in the main cabin or for 360,000 miles in Delta One.
Related: Best Sweet Spots With Delta SkyMiles
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