Originally Posted by
flyallnite
It's interesting you pick this airplane, the DC-9-10.
Delta operated only a small fleet of DC-9-10 variants, and if you look at the history of the Delta fleet, we've not been in the less than 75 seat market since the mid 70's.
In today's world, this Delta of old wouldn't last a week. Competition from SWA, JBLU, deregulated fares, and hub frequencies from our competitors would make hash out of us.
This is a dynamic industry. Today's must have aircraft is tomorrow's pig. Economically viable seat ranges flex and flux (is that a thing? anyway...) and I can see why we don't have a fleet of 255 DC-9-10's right now. But we do have a fleet of DC-9-10 replacement jets that are significantly more fuel efficient and we aren't flying them. We outsource them to the lowest bidder which guarantees not only that we won't be flying them, but that anything shy of 150 or so seats is in severe jeopardy as well. There is no rationalization around that. If we allow larger outsourced aircraft, our 150 seat range will face catastrophic pressure to divert that capacity to the bottom feeders and ace dealers of the industry.
If the company wants/needs/has a giggity for 255 70-76 seat jets, they can have them or more. But we need to be the ones flying them.