Orders are not a big deal either. In fact they are almost meaningless until you are within 2 years of delivery. You can secure a widebody firm order for 10,000.00 dollars. United can walk away from the entire order for probably 500k. Delta has always placed orders in small batches closer to planned delivery. Management has stated that a widebody order is in negotiations. I think you will see it in the next year. They don’t need additional aircraft right now with the current order book. Delta also tries very hard to tie aircraft purchases to MRO deals that can cover a large portion of the airframe cost. They have far more flexibility to set up MRO’s with a non union maintenance department. When your P&W geared turbo fans on your A321 NEO’s need a overhaul guess who will likely do the work!
United has always been a widebody airline. Widebodies are fantastic in the good times and not so good in the bad times. The bad news for Delta is they are going to be running a large fleet of A330-900’s which is close to being an orphan aircraft. The good news is they are getting them very cheap and Delta seems to be able to handle orphaned aircraft. Think Convair 880, L1011, MD11. MD90, 717 ect…