Delta Air Lines is giving Los Angeles travelers a long-awaited nonstop shot to the Philippines, announcing Friday that it will launch the carrier’s first direct service between Los Angeles International Airport and Manila in March 2027. The move plugs a major hole in LAX’s map and, for the first time on a U.S. carrier, offers Angelenos a straight shot to the Philippine capital.
The airline said the route is slated to kick off in March 2027 and will make Delta the only U.S. carrier with nonstop Los Angeles to Manila service, according to ABC7 Los Angeles. In a statement to ABC7 Los Angeles, Jeff Arinder, Delta’s vice president of network planning, said, "Customers traveling through Los Angeles continue to benefit from Delta's investments in LAX, including an expanding Asia‑Pacific network and the opening of our second Delta One Lounge." Delta did not immediately roll out full booking details, so travelers eager to lock in seats will have to wait a bit longer.
Flight Details And Schedule
Industry outlets are zeroing in on a late March 2027 launch. The Points Guy pegs March 28 as the inaugural date, while schedule data cited by One Mile at a Time points to a late March start with three flights a week at first, ramping up to daily service by early June. One Mile at a Time also reports that Delta intends to use an Airbus A350‑900 on the route, with westbound block times of about 14 hours and 40 minutes and shorter eastbound legs thanks to prevailing winds. Those long hauls track with the roughly 7,300‑mile stretch between LAX and Manila.
Why LAX Matters
The decision lands with particular weight in Southern California, where Filipino communities and businesses form a major cultural and economic backbone. A true nonstop link trims hours off journeys that currently snake through other Asian hubs. “As a primary gateway to the Pacific, LAX is proud to welcome Delta’s new nonstop service to Manila,” Los Angeles World Airports said in remarks reported by TravelPulse. The new route also injects fresh competition into long‑haul travel between the West Coast and the Philippines, giving flyers another option besides multi‑stop itineraries.
At LAX: Lounges And Premium Capacity
On the ground at LAX, Delta has been quietly setting the table for more long‑haul flying. The airline opened Phase 1 of a second Delta One Lounge in Terminal 2 this summer and says the full project will add thousands of square feet of lounge space by 2028, according to the airline’s newsroom. Delta News Hub casts the new lounge and other upgrades as part of a broader strategy to grow premium capacity at the airport, a plan that lines up neatly with deploying long‑haul A350s on newly announced Pacific routes. Travelers can reasonably expect premium seating and lounge access to be a selling point of the Manila flights as final schedules and aircraft assignments are locked in.
Delta’s Los Angeles to Manila service marks another step in LAX’s bid to cement itself as a serious transpacific crossroads, while handing local travelers a long‑requested nonstop option to the Philippines on a U.S. carrier. Official booking pages and fare maps are expected to roll out in the months ahead as Delta finalizes the schedule and opens the route for sale.
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