Football Season Kicks Off: Where The Big 3 US Airlines Are Expanding To Fly Fans

The fall football season has kicked off across the United States. The National Football League’s (NFL) 2025 season started earlier this month, and college football is also underway. Airlines are seizing the opportunity by targeting traveling fans and scheduling additional flights for key weekends.

The country’s three largest carriers, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines, have each added dozens of flights to match the seasonal demand. Many of these services are timed around games in major cities, giving supporters the chance to combine a football trip with a short getaway.

American Airlines has scheduled more than 185 additional flights between August 28 and January 5, offering over 22,000 extra seats for football fans. The carrier has expanded service on 24 domestic routes tied to professional football games, which are mainly played on Sundays. Thus, most of the added flights are scheduled for Fridays or Saturdays with returns on Monday. Las Vegas is one of the major draws this season. For four Raiders home games, American will operate flights from visiting teams’ cities, including Cleveland, Jacksonville, Kansas City, and Nashville.

Florida will also see five weekend routes, including three to Miami from Baltimore, Buffalo, and Cincinnati. Additionally, from its Philadelphia hub, the airline has scheduled additional flights for the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles’ away games, with extra services to Green Bay, Minneapolis, and Tampa. Most of the NFL routes will see one added flight, but the Charlotte–Green Bay route will receive two additional services on November 1 and 2 to support the Panthers–Packers game.

At the same time, the airline has also scheduled extra flights to international destinations hosting NFL games this season, including Madrid, London, Berlin, and Dublin. Besides, for college football, the oneworld Alliance member has scheduled more than 40 routes, primarily as Friday–Sunday roundtrips. These include rare services in college towns such as Gainesville, Northwest Arkansas, and Knoxville. In addition, the airline is also flying from New York LaGuardia and Washington National to South Bend, Indiana, on seven weekends between September 12 and November 23 to cater to University of Notre Dame games.

Delta Will Operate Atlanta-Berlin Route For The First Time In November

Delta Air Lines has added around 37 new flights to increase nonstop options between key cities, including Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Grand Rapids, Green Bay, New Orleans, Baltimore, Seattle, Jacksonville, Buffalo, and Philadelphia. In addition, the airline will deploy larger aircraft on 12 existing services to boost capacity for several big Lions games, such as Lions at Eagles, Lions at Chiefs, and Lions at Packers. But the most notable addition is an international route.

For the first time, Delta will operate a nonstop service between Atlanta and Berlin, Germany, for the NFL game between the Atlanta Falcons and Indianapolis Colts on November 9. The airline will run two outbound flights from Atlanta on November 5 and 6, with returns on November 10 and 11, according to the schedule. Service will be operated with a mix of Boeing 767s and Airbus A330-300s. Currently, the SkyTeam member operates a seasonal Berlin service from New York JFK.

Alongside the NFL boost, the airline has also added more than 40 flights to support major college football games (between August 30 and November 30), including the LSU Tigers at the Clemson Tigers and the Texas Longhorns at the Ohio State Buckeyes. Markets such as South Bend, Austin, Knoxville, Gainesville, and Columbus will benefit from this seasonal uplift. On some of these routes, including Austin–Gainesville, Delta will face direct competition from American Airlines.

Furthermore, United Airlines has also added additional capacity for college football this fall. The airline is offering nearly 3,500 extra seats across 24 games. Last year, the airline already operated flights into a number of unique college towns, and this year it is again flying into many of them while adding select new or rarely served cities. The schedule includes cities like Knoxville, Sarasota, South Bend, Rapid City, Bentonville, State College, Reno, Baton Rouge, and Greenville–Spartanburg.

Many of the additional flights are tied to Notre Dame fixtures. This month, on September 26, United will operate Newark Liberty–Bentonville service for Notre Dame vs Arkansas game. The same day it will operate Columbus–Seattle service for Ohio State vs Washington. In October, services will run into South Bend, Knoxville, Eugene, State College, and Lincoln, among others.

Besides, the Star Alliance member is also assigning larger aircraft on select routes where traffic is expected to remain high. For instance, Houston–Bentonville for Texas A&M vs Arkansas on October 17, Newark–Boston for Notre Dame vs Boston College on October 31, and Newark–Pittsburgh for Notre Dame vs Pitt on November 14.