Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
I don't keep up with the RJ stuff like I used to, but at one time Delta had the largest CF34 overhaul facility on the planet.
There is a 50 seat market. Some (probably about 120 or so) will stick around long term. The rub is that the 76 seater brings in > 50% more revenue at similar ~ 10 to 15% higher block hour and trip cost.
Bombardier and Embraer are good at keeping Delta's secrets. That' part of the deal. I am suprised Delta has not executed the order allowed under C2012 scope, after all gettng the large RJ's as swaps was a major part of that deal ... then, nothing.
Probably because they wanted the 717's (or the A319's…whatever) and were getting them anyway. Just look at how phenominal of a deal it was, and how much marketing loves the plane. They knew all this back then too. My point is they were
nev-ver going to refurb the massive 50 seat fleet. And if they did they'd now be the laughing stocks of Wall Street. It doesn't matter if you have the machine shop capacity to do it or not. I'm sure they did. Its sure is nice to send the many hundreds we don't need (and never needed in the first place) to the desert without brand new engines and heavy checks though because the economics of it are pure POS and they don't have anyone to fly them anyway, isn't it?
I agree that there is a market to some limited extent for some airframes that size (heck, there's a market for big Globals/Gulfstreams…so much so we for some reason agreed to forgive a scope violation and allow non union pilots who were already violating our contract to own that flying), and its possible that a small number of the 50 fleet will at some point get new engines and maybe, just maybe a heavy check or whatever it was here or there.
But the threat to just go "all-in" with that many 50 seaters was an empty one. They were never going to do that, and they knew it then as well as they know it now.