Originally Posted by
OldFlyGuy
DL is indeed expanding its wide body inventory. Just not at DL. As long as AF, KLM, Korean, China Eastern, Aero Mexico, Virgin Atlantic have 747, 380, 787.. why does DL need them? They claim they do well making smaller piecemeal orders "opportunistic" they call it. I call it kicking the capital expenditure can down the road to fund stock buybacks that weaken us financially. Crap, we have a number of leased 737-900s... those are supposed to be the backbone of our fleet forever and I can't be convinced of a reason to lease any of them. We have 76ERs that are antiques. If we don't have replacements on the order book now we may wait years. I suspect management looks at our JVs as an international scab/replacement force. I trust our management to make money and take care of whomever is left flying for Delta. I'm just not sure what or how many jobs there will be. I'm also not sure how it affects hiring. If the typical UAL, AMR person can expect to spend twice the time on a wide body as a DL person.... That is a ton of career bucks difference. Rant over. Have a great Delta day. JMO, OFG