Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
Hoping to get anything used on the cheap is our future here at Delta. Bar was absolutely correct in his analysis. New Boeings or Airbuses are out of the question now in any meaningful quantity. That decision is done.
It's clear to me that RA has decided that paying down debt really is his main goal. To that end, we will be flying really old airplanes for quite a long time. Our 777's and A330's are going to be the newest we see for a while. Hope the gamble works out for us, because this is now our course.
Carl
Carl, I have a friend who works for Boeing in their marketing division. We can get any Boeings we want on 24 months notice. Some in even less time. We still have a big bunch of 777 delivery positions. Many of the current positions customers have will never be realized and come available. They restructure delivery slots all the time for better customers. In fact most of the contracts allow Boeing to slide the deliver time frame. Want to make 100 737's available in 18 months. Simply slide other deliveries 2 months and you create a huge surplus.
This exact same discussion went around in the late nineties when pilots were saying we were locked out of the market because Boeing and Airbus were sold out. Next thing you know we were getting all kinds of different aircraft brand new. We will get what we want when we want. When it comes to aircraft purchase Delta is a 800 lb gorilla. Airbus, Boeing and others are making huge efforts as we speak to be the choice of Delta in its recent request for bids for deliveries starting in 2013. They are not sitting home saying were sold out can't help you!