The surviving post merger Delta CEO was Richard Anderson who came from NW, which already had a bunch of Airbus 330's and 320's. NW was the US launch customer for the 787, they had a sim and even had trained some instructors on the 787....when the 787 developed problems.

It was delayed about 3 years, but by then NW had merged with Delta which already had 777's and 10 more on order, and then Richard got into a ****ing contest with Boeing over the 787's, the Import/Export bank financing the ME3, etc.

So Richard delayed the 787 orders until 2020, and then just a few months ago Delta cnx'd them altogether. In the meantime, Richard restructured the Narita hub (ie dismantled it) and decided to make SEA and LAX the west coast gateway to Asia.

Don't need the range of the 787 if all you are going to fly is SEA/LAX to Seoul. They are working on another JV with Korean right now.

And who needs Boeings when you can buy Airbus for less than half the price?

Richard's got a real hardon for Boeing, that's why Delta's buying Airbus.