Credit for the Chart to Boyd's Aviation Planning, Hotflash:


Point is, Delta is one of the few airlines expanding, although at a nominal pace. Most of the "expansion" is upsizing RJ's and DC9's.

Boyd expects an economic crunch to hit the 70 to 90 seat operations. He might be focusing too narrowly on small airport (regional airport) issues for his clients. He fails to note that a CRJ700/900 has a lower fuel burn per seat mile than anything with a JT8 engine on it.

His prognosis is based heavily on increasing fuel prices during 2011. He's probably right on that point, but, there is additional oil capacity coming on line too. United States domestic gasoline consumption has been steadily declining since 2006.