Originally Posted by
johnso29
While the timing of the announcement seems to line up with upcoming Sec 6, I don't think the two are related. I just think DAL has not found an acceptable product. RA has been consistently saying that in order to get the full value of an aircraft you need to OWN it for 30 years. The E190 is not a good product. JB stopped taking delivery of them, Catcus has a small amount, & RAH has a small amount too. The C-Series is a paper airplane, & I don't think we want to commit to it without knowing we can get 25-30 years out of it.
Keep in mind our A319's are pretty young, as are a good amount of our A320's. They aren't replacing all of our 320's with the -900ER, just some older ones. Our A319's are configured to 126 seats.
I also feel our NC will not even bring a TA to MEMRAT that has scope relief in it. As a matter of fact, I think we need to worry about Code Share/JV language just as much as seat/weight limitations. It's crucial that we all take the contract survey(available soon) and pound our Reps with priorities. NO MORE SCOPE RELIEF!!!!
Seems as if every aircraft is compromised to chose from. I'll give you that. The E190 has issues but has a nice cabin, the C-Series is awesome but doesn't exist, the 737s and A320s are what they are, and there are a bunch of weird regional jets to compete with the E190 coming out from all over the world.
The best 130ish seat aircraft for us imho is the A319. We've already got them.
But of course if you want to move 100 seaters out of mainline, because evidently you've lost your mind about operational and brand control and are blind to what happens if you finance your competition, but if you want to move it there is only one way to make that happen - ask for scope relief from Delta pilots and convince them to say yes.
That's IF that is the objective. Trying to be an optimist that producing your core product in house still means something.
As to the age of aircraft:
