How in the world did they ever get more than 76 seats in that thing?

Hey Bar,

That's about the only thing at DAL older than I am..........got over a thousand hours in the 3....40, 20, Cowl flaps..trail. :D

What's a DC3?

Brent Crude vice WTI
 

Brent crude is Delta's new measure for pricing oil
August 12, 2011

In an effort to more accurately share the fuel prices that have the most impact on the company, Delta recently adopted the Brent price for crude oil and this is now being reported on DeltaNet and in the Delta Daily instead of West Texas Intermediate or WTI.

What Delta previously did and what most other carriers do today is price their oil from West Texas Intermediate supplies. The WTI oil stock is stored in Cushing, Okla., and is often called “light, sweet crude” because of how easy it is to refine and because of its low sulfur content. Brent oil, which was named after the Brent Goose when oil fields in Europe were named after birds, has more sulfur in it, making it less “sweet”, which means a bit more refining is required to turn the crude oil into gas and products such as jet fuel.

“One of the biggest things we’ve done as a group was in March when Delta moved away from WTI as its primary hedging vehicle,” said Jon Ruggles, v. p. of fuel who recently joined Delta to oversee trading and buying. “Because there’s not enough transportation of the fuel stored in Oklahoma to refineries, the price of West Texas Intermediate isn’t as useful in terms of how Delta or other airlines buy fuel or take trading positions related to hedging our risks.”

And there’s more to the fuel story than just crude oil prices; getting jet fuel out of crude requires “cracking” at large refineries around the world. The fluctuating price to break down crude oil into other petroleum products is called the crack spread, and that number has been rising steadily in the past year as refineries have preferred to make more profitable gasoline than less-lucrative jet fuel.

The high crack spreads keep Delta’s total fuel bill up even when raw crude oil prices have fallen as has been the case this month as economic uncertainty damped investor appetite for oil.

As Richard said in his Right from Richard message on Friday, “even though we’re seeing a little relief on the fuel front, fuel is still higher today than it was on the first of January of 2011. It’s clear the economy still has many challenges and we have no reason to think low fuel prices will stick.”

The crack spread numbers are at or above all-time records, masking the crude oil drops seen in both West Texas Intermediate and Brent oil.

“Don’t always be fooled by fuel prices because we have to refine a barrel of oil and the crack spreads – which is the cost of refining fuel – are still very high,” Richard said. “So we have to always be thinking and being vigilant about changing the way we do business.

That’s why Delta’s initiatives to lower nonfuel costs – retiring aircraft, consolidating real estate and offering voluntary packages – are working to keep the carrier’s margins healthy so that future price spikes aren’t as harmful.

As Ruggles said in the What’s the 411? Q&A, WTI may yet return as the benchmark crude price if more ways to move it from Oklahoma develop. But for now Delta sticks to the Brent crude when thinking about its fuel costs.

I own and fly a taildragger. Might even have more taildragger time than some of the management pilots who managed to ground loop Ship 41. Think they'll let some regular line pilots fly it?

That's hilarious!

Where on Earth did you find that?

Carl

They had to. Unless they wanted it outsourced.

Someone obviously has way too much time on their hands! I would think that even though it is an awesome picture, time could have been better spent plumbing the depths of the internet for the most awesome underbob picture and reporting back...

I thought that was lifted off of LM's ALPA oil painting...money well spent in my opinion.

Now that IS rich....I agree wholeheartedly with the original post. It'd be real nice to see this ship on the airshow circuit. Preference given to line pilots.