Originally Posted by
tsquare
True dat.. but they DO burn twice as much gas.. or more... and there is a point of diminishing returns. When those airplanes operating margin is what they want it to be, they get parked. There is a curve, and when it hits that curve, out they go. They will cut their losses rather than continue losing money (when the point to operate the aircraft becomes too great) regardless of how much they have invested in lie flats etc...
T;
The do burn a lot more gas, but they carry about 60K more pounds of cargo than a ER. DAL fills those birds up with cargo on almost every leg. With the CASM where it is, there is a lot of room for fuel to spike. The truer fact is when the cargo goes away the jets go away.