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Delta Air Lines is including extra flights subsequent yr at Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport, in a bid to realize market share in one of many nation’s fastest-growing airports.

The provider plans so as to add 11 nonstop flights from Austin in April, giving it nearly 50 peak-day flights, the airline mentioned Friday.

Flight additions embody Midland-Odessa and McAllen in Texas, in addition to Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina, Nashville and Cincinnati.

It should additionally route connecting passengers via the hub, a shift for the Atlanta-based provider.

“This is the first time we’ll be using Austin as a connecting point to access our network with the addition of McAllen and Midland,” Eric Beck, managing director of community planning, mentioned in an interview. “For us here at Delta, Texas has historically been a white space for opportunity on our network.”

Austin’s inhabitants has grown quickly lately and the town has drawn funding from huge firms comparable to Apple, Tesla and IBM.

Beck mentioned no single firm drove the choice to increase in Austin. However “over time as we talk to our corporate accounts and look to where they’re traveling that we don’t have service,” McAllen and Midland, a base for the oil-rich Permian Basin, topped the checklist, he added.

Beck mentioned each cities have sturdy enterprise communities and tourism sights.

Austin’s airport served greater than 7.1 million passengers final yr, up 11% from 2019, earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic, in response to aviation analytics agency Cirium. Passenger counts fell 5% within the U.S. general throughout that interval.

Delta had a market share of near 14% in Austin as of September, behind Southwest Airlines‘ 40% share and American Airlines‘ 22%, in response to airport knowledge.