Leaked: Delta Plans Daily Los Angeles–Manila Flights—The Return Lands Before It Takes Off

Delta hasn’t announced that they’ll be flying Los Angeles to Manila yet. But that’s the plan, and the flight’s schedule has even leaked now. I revealed in November that Delta planned to start flying to Manila. Then in March they informed the Department of Transportation of their intention. They wanted the U.S. government to use approving Philippine Airlines Chicago approval as leverage to get them better times for their own service to Manila. Delta is pursuing plans to launch its own Manila service next summer (2027) with daily Airbus A350-900 service from Los Angeles (LAX). We now know more about this service. Delta Airbus A350-900 Aviation watchdog JonNYC has the actual planned schedule for the flight. And I’ve always loved long haul transpacifics that involve ‘time travel’ – that arrive back in the U.S. before the time they departed because of the International Date Line (and because flying to the West Coast takes less time than flying further East). Flights like this always used to confuse US Airways agents trying to book award travel. LAX-MNL flights departing Manila at 7:40 A.M. will arrive in Los Angeles at 6:05 A.M. on the same day, while return flights will depart Los Angeles at 11:50 P.M. and arrive in Manila at 5:30 A.M. two days after departure. https://t.co/b37BKT8Dpm — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 17, 2026 Service will begin as 3 times weekly starting March 28 from LA (and March 30 from Manila) and move to daily June 7. Airbus A350-900 Delta has service Manila before, as recently as 2020, but from within Asia. Their last Tokyo Narita – Manila flight was March 27, 2020. They ha dplanned to start Seoul – Manila on March 29, 2020. That slipped to May 1, 2020 but – thanks to the pandemic – it didn’t start until January 2, 2021. And it was suspended months later, in May 2021. It’s a flight that JonNYC specifically called more than half a year ago: So with regard to Delta’s next moves internationally; SIN, MNL, and LAX/JFK-ICN are definitely in the immediate future. It’s further stated that future Asia expansion will launch out of LA -and- Seattle, mentioning ICN as an ideal hub for onward Asian travel but mentioning that… — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) November 4, 2025 One would normally expect Delta to launch Asia service from Seattle. They’ve called that their transpacific gateway. But Delta is really working to build up Los Angeles, and Seattle hasn’t worked the way they’ve hoped – Alaska has been a much more formidable competitor than they thought. LA is a stronger local market. They’ve added Hong Kong there as well. Delta Air Lines at LAX Philippine Airlines has long been one of the best ways to get premium cabin award space, though there’ll be more competition for those flights as oneworld carriers add them for redemption. But that’s been indicative to me of the limits of the market, and not just of their lack of partners. I don’t anticipate Delta making cheap awards as prevalent, especially to SkyMiles members. Nonetheless it’ll be interesting to see how the flight performs. Topics on this page