Saturday, August 31, 2024 Delta Air Lines will permanently discontinue its direct flights between Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Stuttgart, Germany, starting October 27. Initially, the airline had intended to convert the Stuttgart route to a seasonal schedule in response to decreasing demand. However, Delta has now made the decision to terminate the service entirely.
Delta’s decision to discontinue this route marks a significant shift in its operations in Germany. The airline had served Stuttgart year-round, but reservations for the route have been closed since the onset of the winter season. This change follows Delta’s earlier decision to cut its direct service between Atlanta and Dusseldorf last year.
The Dusseldorf route, which operated three times a week using a Boeing 767-300ER, provided American travelers with direct access to the German city as well as nearby Cologne and Bonn. With the cancellation of the Stuttgart and Dusseldorf routes, Delta has now eliminated two key German connections within the span of a year. This is a notable departure from Delta’s long history of serving these cities, with Stuttgart being a fixture in the airline’s network for decades, and Dusseldorf having been served consistently from 2006 to 2023, excluding the pandemic period.
Delta’s withdrawal from these airports leaves them without direct transatlantic links to North America, a significant gap given the airline’s status as the only carrier offering these.