I never thought about that. That's a very very good question.

No it doesn't get around DL scope protection:

Section 1
SCOPE
Amend Section 1 B. 28. to:
Delete all references to Alaska and AS hub to hub baseline ratios.
Amend Section 1 B. 40. to read:
40. “Permitted aircraft type” means:
a. a propeller-driven aircraft configured with 70 or fewer passenger seats and with a maximum certificated gross takeoff weight in the United States of 70,000 or fewer pounds, and
b. a jet aircraft certificated for operation in the United States for 50 or fewer passenger seats and with a maximum certificated gross takeoff weight in the United States of 65,000 or fewer pounds, and
c. one of up to 255 jet aircraft configured with 51-70 passenger seats and certificated in the United States with a maximum gross takeoff weight of 86,000 pounds or less (“70-seat jets”), and
3
d. one of up to 120 jet aircraft configured with 71-76 passenger seats and certificated in the United States with a maximum gross takeoff weight of 86,000 pounds or less (“76-seat jets”). The number of 76-seat jets may be increased above 120 by three 76-seat jets for each aircraft above the number of aircraft in the baseline fleet operated by the Company (in service, undergoing maintenance and operational spares) as of CBAID. The baseline fleet number will be 440+N, in which N is the number of aircraft (in service, undergoing maintenance and operational spares but not including permitted aircraft types) added to the Company’s baseline fleet from NWA. The number and type of all aircraft in the Company’s fleet on CBAID will be provided to the Association. The number of 70-seat jets plus 76-seat jets permitted by Section 1 B. 40. may not exceed 255.
Exception: Up to the 36 EMB-175s that were operated and/or ordered by Northwest prior to CBAID may continue to be operated with up to a maximum gross takeoff weight of 89,000 pounds.

Edit: Wikipedia shows 185 70 and 76 seat aircraft that fall under what management would say is the scope. I'm not sure if you can count Compass in those totals. Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source so please correct these numbers if they are wrong.

If 185 is correct than it looks like DL can add more 70 and 76 seat jets to the system. If Compass is included in that 255 aircraft total then Delta only has 221 total 70-76 aircraft. Again correct my numbers if they are wrong.

The only reason they are doing this is cost. There is absolutely no return on returning a CRJ-700 for a CRJ-900. They want first class seats wherever possible. Because of this, they will take four seats out of a 70 and operate it as such.
It is a good move for DAL in the fact that they retro-fit an existing jet. What it also means is that they will not be converting the 700's for 900's. Means there is are about 32 700's/900's left until they hit the 255 ceiling.

Could you please post a reference to such a ' fact ' ATLMSL ?

Very very nice guess. You are right, company did mention vacancies for more FO and CA in the 700/900.

just my 2 cents but it doesn't make sense to give aircraft to a contract carrier when the wholly owned are furloughing in large quantities, 160 and growing at XJ and 319 at Comair, and costing Delta training costs...

sigh.... if you are furloughed and have a lot of time on your hands, I suggest you set up your own ASA pilot forum. There you can talk about all the latest gossip and rumors that you can think of including more CRJ-700s. Lots of people are doing it for their own airline. Even Lynx has its own pilot forum.

We at the contract carriers actually agree with you, but when has anything ever made sense in this industry?

They're gonna be 65 seats 56/9 FWIW w/out the front lav.

Let's say hypothetically someone ordered CRJ-700s, how long would it take to get them? Does bombardier have a big back log?