Delta to woo flyers on transcontinental flights with small upgrades

Delta Air Lines Inc. plans service upgrades on some transcontinental U.S. flights from New York as competition intensifies in the nation’s biggest aviation market.

Amenities will include sparkling wine and newspapers in business class and an expanded library of movies and on-demand television, Atlanta-based Delta said in a statement today. The routes are between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Delta, the world’s second-largest carrier, is poised to slide to No. 3 as the planned merger of AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. creates a new No. 1. American also uses Kennedy for transcontinental flights, while United Continental Holdings Inc., now the biggest airline by traffic, has a hub at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport.

Transcontinental routes from New York are among the busiest in the U.S. industry. Virgin America Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp. also serve the U.S. West Coast from Kennedy airport.

Editors: John Lear and Cecile Daurat.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ed Dufner in Dallas at edufner@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net.