Ozpilot414

Delta rules out sale of regional carriers: Delta Air Lines has no intention of selling its regional carriers, President Ed Bastian said Wednesday. With about 50% of regional traffic under corporate control, "It helps us drive cost targets with our own carriers, and gives us more flexibility to respond quickly to changes in demand," he said. Following its merger with Northwest Airlines, Delta owns three regional carriers: Comair, Mesaba and Compass.

Airsupport

hmmm. not sure if this is good or bad.

F172Driver

Didn't Delta own ASA also? Did they sell them or do they still own them?

StallFail

They did, but not anymore. ASA is owned by SkyWest, INC.

F172Driver

Roger, as soon as I read your post I remembered.......my sunburn must be screwing with my brain.....

p1kraft

im kind of thinking they mean, by not selling there regionals its easy for them to respond to demand changes with shifting flying to the regionals from the majors and to the majors from the regionals. Would it make a difference that owning three regionals makes this easier than with the other regionals??

Seattlecfi

They can keep the contract carriers at min contract, and use the wholly owned to pick up the slack, or cut back without violating contracts.

eaglefly

Gee I'm surprised...................since RJ's are supposed guaranteed money losers, you'd think they'd want to unload ASAP and farm out to the lowest bidder. The same has been said of American Eagle which was on sale for a while, but the fine print (indicating the desire to control more then stand alone entities could accept) scared off the suitors who expressed interest.

Since AMR is a habitual follower instead of a leader, I suppose this will probably insure Eagle remains under tight AMR control for a long time to come and the competitive landscape that Delta acknowledges does exist by this declaration means Eagle's economic viability is just as valid. In fact, given the severity of the approaching labor thunderstorm at AA, Eagle is likely to now have more value retained (and under control) then sold.

I'm seeing more and more 90 seaters in Delta (NWA) colors now then even a few months ago, but that is to be expected, for the evolution of the regionals is likely to maintain its momentum for the forseeable future.

Anyone have a number of the number of 90 seaters DAL/NWA has on property and order for their regionals ?

JetFlyer06

I don't think we have any "90 seaters" on the property per se. Are you talking about CRJ-900 aircraft with 70-76 seats? Or ERJ-175s with 76 seats? Next up from that would be the DC9-30 with 100 seats. We can get an answer for you but please clarify which equipment you are referring to.

DAL4EVER

Two things to read into their statement on the RJs:

1. By maintaining 50% wholly owned to contracted carriers, the whipsaw will be alive and well for the indefinite future.

2. They couldn't sell any of the wholly owneds in this market because no one can raise the capital to buy any of them. That's why most if not all deliveries being made are actually older orders for which the financing was guaranteed. And you are right about the wholly owneds going to bear the brunt of the cutbacks as there is no contract for Delta to worry about with them.

All in all, I didn't think this was good in the long run for any DCI carriers. Short term, the wholly owneds have a reprieve. I guess that's good for them. Long term, this doesn't help anyone.