According to Delta’s timetables, they have TWELVE 757 flights daily between Atlanta GA and Jacksonville FL - seems like a huge seat volume between 2 city pairs. Way more than they run for ATL-MIA or ATL-HOU or ATL-JFK.
With the return flights, Delta has at least one 757 in the air between ATL and JAX for about 20 hours a day. Does anybody have an idea why Delta runs this many flights this way. (Passenger traffic can’t possibly support this).
wondering…
Spring break?
I can tell you that there are at least 6 - 8 Military Bases in and close to JAX. Lotta traffic there 
. I was stationed at Jax
twice and it was nice to have those flights available.
Dont know if that would be the main reason but sure is a good help.
Spring break doesn’t last all year.
I see 11 Delta + 5 AirTran; not sure where the “20 hours” comes from.
flightaware.com/live/findflight/KATL/KJAX
No. It doesn’t. My apologies for assuming the context. Perhaps we should inquire as to the OP’s timeframe?
He’s talking about the timetable so the timeframe is now until November. At least.
Yup… that he is… At first blush, I saw his inquiry in a much less limited range. I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last time…
A careful study of the 1 Feb 13 timetables does indeed show up to 11 flights a day by the 757 (or 752 in one case) at the end of March.
There are 757 flights 5 to 7 days a week at 8:15, 9:45. 10:55, 12:10, 13:45, 16:19, 17:38, 19:55, 20:45, 21:55, and 22:55.
On this route there are a total of 70 757 flights, 9 M88 flights, 1 752 flight, and one 73H flight for a total of 81 flights a week.
I welcome any confirmation of my research. Unfortunately, major airlines print only PDF timetables yet are still thinking paper and therefore cram as many months of flights as they can into one timetable rather than creating timetables covering fewer weeks.
There’s a couple of things in play here:
DL is by far the dominant carrier at JAX and ATL is the primary gateway where they connect JAX to the rest of their network. In TPA, FLL, and MIA, DL has lower market share and those stations are better connected to other DL hubs than JAX is.
JAX has a large catchment area and is more business oriented than other Florida cities, this means that schedule, and thus frequency, is important. JAX also does not leak to other airports as the only reasonably close airport is DAB, which has inferior service and higher fares. The DAB market instead leaks to JAX and MCO. Since there are no airports of any size in southeast Georgia, JAX draws from that area too.
JAX-ATL is much shorter than JAX to any other DL hub. With fuel expensive, airlines try to funnel traffic from outstations to the closest hub and reduce overflying to further hubs. A simple example of this is that when fuel went up in 2008, United cut frequency on ORD-LAS and added frequency on DEN-LAS - offering the same amount of seats to the market but hopefully having to haul passengers fewer miles and using less fuel. Stations that lie in between multiple hubs often see more balanced service, for example CMH, which is about the same size as JAX, has a good mix of flights to ATL, DTW, LGA, and MSP
I agree with your analysis - but the capacity is still staggering and MUST be disproportionate to the actual customer use. TWELVE 757s !
For comparison, Delta only runs FIVE 757s between New York and San Francisco and only EIGHT 757s between New York and LA. (I can’t believe I’m saying ONLY EIGHT - that’s over a thousand seats per day).
It’s not like they do maintenance there, or repainting or something. Sometimes you see a big flight going to Tulsa or OK City or something but sometimes that is for periodic maintenance.
NO WAY Atlanta-Jacksonville FL can support practically the same volume as NY-LAX and NY-SFO combined.
(P.S. I’m just baffled because Delta won’t even keep one non-stop from Cincinnati to Phoenix - just one measly 737)
Big difference between a transcon flight and a short flight. There’s probably more people connecting on the JAX/ATL flights than JFK/SFO. In many cases there will be more capacity and/or flights between shorter hops when compared to longer runs. Additionally, JFK/SFO has many other airlines operating the route while JAX/ATL. AirTran (Southwest) and Delta operate between JAX/ATL while there are at least 5 airlines operating JFK/SFO (Virgina America, Delta, American, United).