Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
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.
Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
If fuel prices go anywhere near they are predicted to go, the DC9 is going to be an incredibly expensive airplane to operate.
It has outlived all the previous predictions of it's demise, but at some point it is going to not make any sense to operate it.
Even the large RJ's have a high CASM. There is really no point to continue to invest in those jets.
**The disclaimer to this is that many of TSH's large RJ's will need a home and DCI is a target. They can put about 20 70 seaters here right now. They are under leases so DAL would not be responsible for acquisition costs nor long term agreements with these jets.
And then Delta and SKW do this!
NEW YORK (AP) -- Bombardier Inc. said Tuesday that SkyWest Inc., which operates regional flights for Delta Air Lines Inc., has placed an order for four CRJ700 NextGen airliners.
The order is valued at about $148 million at list prices, although discounts are common.
The aircraft will be flown by SkyWest Airlines under the Delta Connection banner.
SkyWest Airlines and its sister airline, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, currently operate 406 CRJ200, CRJ700 and CRJ900 regional jets.
Including this announcement, Bombardier has taken firm orders around the world for 1,713 CRJ Series aircraft as of Oct. 31.
SkyWest is based in St. George, Utah. Bombardier is based in Quebec.