I'm not sure that other things might also effect Delta's utilization including the dynamics of the Delta route network and geography. Flights full of geriatric customers are full at 05:30 in the morning out of South Florida. At 22:30 ... not so much. The South seems to have an overall older demographic of people who move away from the cold the nanosecond they retire. Some aircraft flying the red-eye stuff literally go 24 hours a day, less whatever time it takes to turn the thing, flip the light switches and throw oil in the engines.

The stats on the numbers of line mechanics has is much higher than NWA's figures. Probably we will need more mechanics.