Can you produce any source for nines coming out of the desert. They are going to the desert almost weekly. In fact I had posted here that we would be down to 62 nines by the end of the year. I was in error. It now appears the actual number is 58. Next year however the rate of retirements slows and they expect only 14 to go to the desert. Lets hope that is true. It would be great if they decided to keep more or bring them back however no one expects that to happen who is involved with fleet planning at Delta. The costs on keeping the nines are to high. No nine will undergo the required aging aircraft inspections when they time out. They are far to expensive. It would be much cheaper even with oil at 50 dollars a barrel to purchase or lease new aircraft.
The real issue again as I have posted is how do we get this flying back at the mainline. For the moment it looks bad. The nines are being replaced with 76 seat RJ's. The long promised 100 seater at Delta is still a pipe dream. By extending the contract 3 years we have given up a chance to force the issue before all the nines are gone. Another reason I voted no that has nothing to do with NWA and everything to do with the contract being a bad deal for both NWA and Delta pilots.