Delta isn’t ready to brag about it. Not yet. The airline hasn’t made a formal press release about launching direct flights between Los Angeles and Manila. That announcement will likely happen closer to summer 2027.
The secret is already out though. Schedules have leaked.
I first reported in November that Delta was eyeing Manila. Then came the bureaucratic stuff in March, where Delta filed with the Department of Transportation. They didn’t just ask for permission. They used leverage. Delta wanted the US government to approve Philippine Airlines’ new Chicago service. In return, Delta needed better scheduling rights for their own Manila route.
It worked. Now we have the actual numbers.
When will Delta start flying LA to Manila?
According to aviation watcher JonNYC, the schedule is tight. Delta plans to start with three weekly flights. Los Angeles departs March 28. Manila departs two days later on March 30. By June 7, the frequency jumps to daily.
Daily. On an Airbus A350-9400.
There’s a weird fun fact here for travel geeks. You can arrive before you leave. Thanks to the International Date Line and the shorter westward flight time compared to heading east across the Pacific, you cross the date line. Your clock goes back. You land in a time zone that feels like the past relative to when you took off. Old school airline agents used to hate this logic when trying to book awards.
Why LA and not Seattle for Delta transpacific flights?
You might wonder why Seattle doesn’t get this route. Delta has called Seattle their “Transpacific gateway” for years. It hasn’t quite clicked. Alaska Airlines became a harder nut to crack than Delta expected in that market. Seattle isn’t pulling its weight as a launchpad for new Asian routes.
Los Angeles is different. It’s a deeper local market. Delta already added Hong Kong from LAX recently. The infrastructure is there. The demand is real. So Manila goes to LA, not Sea-Tac.
One would normally expect Delta to launch Asia from Seattle. But Seattle hasn’t worked the way Delta hoped.
Has Delta ever flown to the Philippines before?
Yes. But it wasn’t from the US mainland. And it ended abruptly.
As recently as March 2020, Delta flew Tokyo Narita to Manila. Just weeks before that pandemic shut the world down, they even planned to launch Seoul to Manila starting in March 2020 (later delayed to May, then finally launched in Jan 2021). That route was suspended in May 2022. It was a brief flicker of connectivity.
Now Delta wants a permanent anchor in Manila.
How do award bookings and premium seats fit into the picture?
If you live for points travel, Philippine Airlines has historically been the goldmine. For years, their Oneworld partner status meant finding first and business class seats was relatively easy on Delta. Easy compared to, say, flying ANA or JAL on a hot route.
That ecosystem is changing. More Oneworld carriers are adding Philippines inventory. Supply will shrink. Delta doesn’t look like the kind of airline that will hand out cheap business class awards to SkyMiles members for this specific route. It’s too new. Too niche. Too valuable.
The market has limits. It isn’t infinite demand.
So here is the reality check. You might have to pay full fare or spend a massive number of miles to get that seat on the A350. The “sweet spot” awards are dying out on this sector.
Will the route succeed? It’s an experiment in density versus frequency. Delta bets on the LA crowd being big enough to support a daily jet to Asia. Alaska didn’t win the gateway war in Seattle. Delta hopes LAX is the winner.
Only time will tell. And for now, we wait. The clock is ticking toward 2027, but the plane hasn’t taken off.
