BiggAW

I'm 6'3", 250 lbs (working on getting that part down, but I'm still a tall dude). As a result, I cannot fly on the mini jets that Wisconsin Air, Chautauqua, ExpressJet or whatever regional airline partners they are using this year are flying around. I normally fly WN as a result, since they also give decent legroom, avoid the assigned seating BS, fly all mainline, are all-Boeing and all-737, and provide my area with more mainline service than anyone else with all full-sized Boeing 737's. I can fly on DL's normal mainline fleet (A319, A320, MD-88, MD-90, etc) if I can't find a decent price or time on WN, although I try to avoid DL like the plague.

What I can't figure out is if I will fit on DL's ex-AirTran 717 fleet. I know this fleet is mainline, but the physical airframes aren't clearly a real jet (B737, A319, MD-80 or larger), or a mini jet (CRJ, Embraer, etc). They are sort of in a weird in-between. Will I fit on one? I'm 6'3", so I need at least 6'4" of headroom to fit in a given airframe and be able to stretch my back and arms out.

Between business and personal, I just took 4 737 flights, and I'm taking 9 more between AS and WN. Hopefully I can book the additional 4 on WN and avoid 2 on DL, but even if I can avoid DL, I'd still like to know if I can go on a 717 for future reference. I go to DTW fairly often from PVD or BDL, so at some point, the direct flight on DL might make more sense than bouncing through BWI or MDW on WN.

diburning

The 717 is essentially a shortened (in length) MD90 (the 717 was called the MD95 before Boeing merged with McDonell Douglas). The MD-90 is essentially an MD88 with upgrades. If you've been in a MD88 or MD90, you'll be fine.

BiggAW

Thanks! Good to know.

maksimfa

the 717 has quickly become my favorite delta jet to fly on domestically.

It is small enough that it does not feel too crowded, yet is a full mainline jet. The fact that they were all recently picked up and renovated is a big plus.

lmsalman

The 717s are a wonderful plane as stated above. As they are were all recently acquired by DL, the interiors are some of the nicest in the fleet, at least for now.

Sabai

Let's bring out the entire bloodline.

BiggAW

Nice! Well it's good to know that if I do get stuck on DL at some point, I can expect a halfway decent experience on the 717 fleet.

SJC ORD LDR

DC9 = MD80 = MD90 = 717

The other positive is that the seat is an inch wider than a 707, 727, 737, and 757.

BiggAW

Are the seats crammed an inch closer together like the rest of their planes?

SJC ORD LDR

According to seatguru, it's 31". I've only been in F, C+, and 21A or E, which have no seat in front of it. So, I find the plane very comfy.

BiggAW

How does that compare to WN? In my experience, they have 1" more than DL, since they don't have all the economy plus/ 1st class BS taking up room.

aviatorzz

I guess I'm confused. I'm 6'7 and can "fit" easily on the Skywest/Compass birds that are flying in and out of Seattle. . Even if I need to snag a comfort plus seat, I still have plenty of room. In fact, if I had my choice between Compass and a A319, id take the compass trip every time.

BiggAW

Headroom. I can't fit into a plane smaller than a 737/MD-95/A319. It pisses me off that DL has their regional partners flying tiny little planes I don't fit in (so do United, USAir, and American), while WN flies B737's everywhere. DL should just get rid of the regional partners entirely and fly all mainline. We have gotten more mainline service in PVD now with the 717 fleet, at one point DL only had a couple a day, and WN owned the vast majority of the mainline market at PVD, since PVD is one of the two metro Boston airports. However, DL still farms out some of their PVD flights to regional partners. If they cared about us as a market, they would fly all mainline like WN.

I can usually avoid DL entirely. WN serves the entire CONUS now plus some (DCA and BOS, really?), although their times or prices occasionally don't work. IIRC, ATL was the last CONUS market WN didn't get into for obvious reasons, but they are there now. It's no wonder that WN is the largest domestic airline now.

3Cforme

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300018724.html

Southwest isn't the largest domestic airline now, and never has been. A common measure for airline size is Revenue Passenger Miles. Southwest has big domestic passenger counts but on shorter average distances. American and Delta both had more domestic RPMs than Southwest for 2014. Systemwide, American, Delta and United are nearly twice Southwest's size

American, Delta, and United use (or overuse) regional carriers and smaller aircraft to serve (in aggregate) hundreds of cities that Southwest doesn't. Worldwide destination count:

AA, 'nearly 350'

DL, 321

United, 373

Southwest, 93

You can't even imagine the dozens of U.S. cities that would lose scheduled commercial airline service entirely if no carrier flew anything smaller than a 737. I appreciate your preference for mainline operations but your view of the industry and its economics is fully decades (and I mean decades, as in pre- 1978 deregulation) out of date.

BiggAW

Interesting. I know systemwide DL was the biggest, and now American/USAir is.

Although WN's business model has been creeping away from being a true LCC in the past few years (DCA and BOS are two prime examples of places they are in that aren't locations a true LCC would be), their model is still far more efficient than DL or the other legacy carriers, and they pass their savings on to the customer in the form of low fares. They serve the entire CONUS with the exception of a chunk of Montana and North Dakota from far fewer airports than the legacy carriers do, meaning more passengers per airport. They use all B737's, which means more passengers per flight, and only one type of aircraft to maintain. And open seating with no first class saves time and increases capacity yet again.

Right. That's because those cities don't have a large enough market for commercial mainline air service, and shouldn't have commercial air service. If you look at WN's route map, and DL's route map, you see how inefficient DL is. They have regional partners flying to all sorts of crazy airports that shouldn't have service. Many of them are absolutely ridiculous.

I am very familiar with the northeast and Michigan, since I go out there often to see family. WN serves the entire state from DTW, GRR, and FNT. Delta has something like 11 or 12 airports in MI, even though only a couple of them actually get mainline service. There is no reason to have service to Alpena, MI or Pellston, MI. I've driven by the Pellston airport, it's a JOKE. That area is served out of DTW via I-75, or TVC in the summer with mainline service. The UP doesn't have any mainline service, so maybe in a more efficient model, they would keep TVC running with mainline service year round to serve the UP and the upper part of the LP.

DL serves Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, neither of which should have any air service. There is a boat that goes there. They have service to White Plains, which should not have commercial service, they are served by EWR, JFK, and LGA. If Delta would get rid of their regional flights and fly all 717's and larger, they would have enough slots at JFK to consolidate their LGA, JFK, and EWR operations together into JFK, and still cut the total number of flights in and out of there significantly.

Somebody (not DL) flies into HVN in New Haven, CT, another city which should not have commercial service. I live very near this areas, and it is already served by mainline service BDL, PVD, LGA, and JFK. I personally have used BDL, PVD, BOS, and JFK to fly out of this area. I see 7 or 8 cities that can be consolidated into the existing mainline operations at ATL.

I could go on all day. Their model is an inefficient mess, and because all their little mini-jets are clogging up the runways at JFK, JFK is a congested mess that's out of capacity. If they banned all planes with less than 143 seats from JFK, it's congestion problems would be instantly solved, and it could serve more passengers and more foreign airlines while reducing the number of takeoff/landing slots to give some breathing room. The A319 is 156, and the 737-700 is 143, both the babies in their families. Even if you let 717's in at 117 seats, the capacity problems would still be fixed, although from a system perspective, they should be sent to routes out of DTW and ATL, and only the higher capacity planes allowed in congested eastern airports like JFK.

Look at MDW. It's WN's big hub, and it's just not very congested, unlike O'Hare or JFK or any other big hub with a legacy airline that has a ton of regional flights coming in and out, and they are a mess. MDW handles a metric crapload of people with little congestion on the runway. O'Hare has 3.5x the number of takeoffs and landings, but only 2.5x the number of people. Those statistics would likely reverse if regional airlines weren't allowed into O'hare, and the smallest plane there was a 737, with 747's, 777's, and the like bringing the per-plane passenger average up.

The fact of the matter is that most people don't use the airports without multiple commercial mainline carriers, because without multiple commercial mainline carriers, the prices are too high anyway. So the country would be much better served by eliminating the regional system.