Originally Posted by
Mesabah
22 DCI Republic E170's got contracted to AMR, and several 700's are not worth spending the conformity money on. So what happened is 35 70 seaters went away permanently, and 35 76 seat jets were converted to 70 seats (flew one yesterday). That's how they complied with LOA 9, and that's why the 35 new jets are probably going to RAH.
This is not entirely true at all. Republic is still operating 17 of those 170s and 5 will come off contract in June/July still letting Delta operate 12 of those 170s through summer. The rest of the 12 fall off contract between August-October. This deal is just to get Delta through this summer and they need more airplanes and they can't get mainline pilots trained fast enough and they know it. Planespotters show Endeavor having 26 900s parked right now and as soon as this contract gets signed all of those will be put in service to accommodate the summer schedule. Plus republic still have old Compass birds that never got conformed so I would not be surprised to see all of those have been done and will be put into service with the signing of this LOA if they have not already been put in service.