Originally Posted by orvil

This article comes from Aviation Daily.

Delta Deal With Pinnacle Provides Option For Additional 50-Seater Flying

Delta Air Lines’ revised Bombardier CRJ200 contract with Pinnacle Airlines includes a provision allowing the major, at its “option and sole discretion,” to place 163 more of the 50-seat regional jets in the regional operator’s fleet.
Delta also can place 24 more spare engines for the aircraft with Pinnacle, under the contract terms disclosed in a Pinnacle filing in its Chapter 11 restructuring case. No one from Delta or
Pinnacle immediately responded to Aviation Week requests for an explanation for the provision’s inclusion.
Pinnacle currently operates all 140 of its CRJ200 aircraft for Delta. Delta also relies on SkyWest subsidiaries SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet for additional CRJ200 feed, with the airlines operating 61 and 99 CRJ200s, respectively, for Delta, for a total of 160, according to the regional airline holding company’s 2011 annual report.
New bankruptcy court filings also show a revision in the labor cost reduction required in Delta’s agreement to provide debtor-in-possession financing.
Under the original agreement Delta gave Pinnacle 45 days from the time it presented its cost-cutting proposals to its unions to reach a voluntary agreement with them. If it did not negotiate agreements by then, Pinnacle would have to file a so-called Section 1113 motion asking the court to reject each union contract.
The revised agreement gives Pinnacle and the unions a little more time to agree on a deal—until July 13, which is more than 60 days from the company’s May 8 presentation of its proposal to the unions.