Originally Posted by meritflyer

Not exactly...

Delta just took three more jets from ExpressJet and put them in Salt Lake City although, they're being manned by LAX crews. The initial deal was for 10 jets. Now as of January '08, it's up to 21. Rumors of a Salt Lake City base are alive and well throughout the LAX base. ExpressJet is up to 20 slots a day in Salt Lake City. ExpressJet's VP also was recently quoted as saying Delta wanted to expand it's west coast relationship with Express. Any jet Express has had come available, Delta has picked it up within a week of it's availability.

During a recent meeting, Delta's CEO [Anderson] was quoted as saying ExpressJet was the "DCI carrier that all others would be measured by" and went on to say how impressed he is with the LAX operation.

The agreement could've been much longer tem but Jim Ream, ExpressJet's CEO, made it very clear during their conference calls that there were issues that the two companies couldn't agree on at the time and Continental clouded some of the ability to progress with Delta.