Originally Posted by
Tinpusher007
I have always believed this to be the case. It never made sense to me that publicly, Richard said the reason the 787 lost out in the RFP was that Boeing couldn't get us favorable delivery slots when he was the one who deferred the order in the first place. He never hid his disdain for Boeing well, even going as far as making comments that hurt their stock price.
People directly involved in the process say the 787 was the front runner. Delta needed the range of the 787-900 over the 787-800 or A350. Boeing knew our plans for the Shanghai hub and the range requirements and felt they were in the drivers seat. They did offer to supply 777-300ER's initially until the 787-900's started arriving. We asked that they build us 777-200LR's instead. They refused stating they were going to stop all -200 production on the 777.
In the end the reasons for why we made the choices we made are mute with the failure to achieve a Shanghai hub and that is the direct reason they are rethinking the widebody plan and have shifted focus to Korea.