Delta to cut some non-stop flights to Asia and Europe

Delta said it would cut capacity by 10 percent compared to 2008 with reductions starting in September. The airline said today international capacity will be reduced by an additional 5 percent for on top of a previously announced 10 percent total reduction.

The airline said it would “reassess staffing needs.”

“While the challenges of the current environment preclude us from making guarantees, our goal remains to avoid any involuntary furloughs of frontline employees,” Delta’s CEO Richard Anderson and President Edward H. Bastian said in a memo to employees released to the press.

Among the cuts will be:

- nonstop service from Atlanta to Seoul and Shanghai. Customers will be rerouted to Detroit or Tokyo or nonstop SkyTeam partner flights.

- nonstop flights from Cincinnati to Frankfurt and London-Gatwick. Customers can reach those destinations through other European gateways, the company said.

- nonstop service between New York-JFK and Edinburgh.

The company will also reduce the frequencies of flights connecting Atlanta and Detroit to Mexico City while postponing some seasonal service between non-hub cities and Mexican beach destinations due to the swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus.