krlcomm

I have had the exact same thing happen, co-pilot does the demo and then sits down and off we go... no FA, I think it was on a CO Beechcraft 1800.

apodo77

Can't remember the plane as it was about 15 years ago but that was my experience as well.

Co-pilot showed us where everything was as well in case we wanted refills and came out to check on us about half way through. It was a private jet for the company I worked with at the time.

emg2919

I'm hoping for one of these. Have a few JFK-JAX, JAX-LGA-JAX trips coming up. Could be some potential there.

xolinlevh

Im sorry im still not quite understanding what the resistance would be. DL isnt pulling enough pax off the commercial flight to cancel it and take work from the FA previously set to work that flight?

MSPeconomist

Not so far, but if the program expands, perhaps as a way to solve oversells......

xolinlevh

But even then wouldnt it just reduce people being forced to take bumps? If anything I'd think FAs/GAs would be happy with this, its less upset customers at the airport being told the planes overbooked and they have to take a later one

MSPeconomist

Yes in the short run, but if DL has Private Jets to flexibly increase capacity by ten or so seats on some routes, they would have reason to reduce capacity on average on these routes in the long run. Fewer flights or smaller aircraft mean fewer FA hours.

xolinlevh

Perhaps, but personally I dont think that this system will ever be large enough to make a significant impact on flight loads. Especially given that these are never known far enough in advance for DL to really change flight schedules. They arent able to confirm these till 24 or maybe 48 hours out, thats not really enough time for Delta to change flights up.

MSPeconomist

Even if it only works half of the time for instance, DL could decrease capacity a bit and still sell the same number of tickets, including last minute full Y fares, knowing that they'll only need to report IDBs and pay IDB (or VDB) compensation only half as often as previously. So capacity cuts can look profitable.

xolinlevh

I see what your saying, and I agree that its possible. I just think that given the irregular and frequently changing schedules and nature of private charters, I think it would be too risky for DL to cut some capacity with the expectation of offsetting some people onto DPJ. Ive had a few empty legs I was set to fly on in the past where the day of departure the 'actual' customer changed their plans and so the departure time had to change wildly because of that, forcing me to switch back to commercial. If DL cuts capacity and expects to shift those pax onto a DPJ, and the charter client moves the time frame (or cancels) then DL is left with a lower capacity commercial flight unable to accommodate the pax who were booked and they end up having to shell out more money in IDB/VDB. I just think the risk vs reward is too slim to make changes to the mainline and rely on DPJ to pick up the slack.

woodford02A

I think you're reading too much into this program MSPeconomist...

From my understanding, these private jet upgrade flights will only be available when private jets need to reposition. By it's nature, private jet travel patterns are very inconsistent and haphazard - the plane goes when it's customer needs to and only then. A plane in CLE one Monday may not be there again the following Monday. It would not be in DL's best interest to take capacity out of, say, ATL-CLE, to "hope" that private jet capacity can backfill. IMO, it's just never going to be that robust of a program. It's simply a way to surprise and delight customers when DPJ would have to fly an empty airplane anyways. DL will never specially position a private jet to add capacity or anything like that....it would simply have to be an opportunistic time to put some rev pax on a DPJ.

DPJ is based in CVG and I imagine CVG based fliers will see the most consistent upgrade opportunities as a/c ferry there for maintenance, etc.

AirTheory

I except this program to be a lot of CVG-ATL flights on Hawker's and Citations.

You could also start tracking DL's tail numbers to have a good guess of where their PJ's will be.

N650DA is their G650 (Good luck getting on that lol)

https://www.deltaprivatejets.com/large_jet.aspx

xolinlevh

Case in point if you look the G650 up on flightaware youll see it was 'scheduled' to depart at 12:40PM and didnt untill 4:50PM, over 4 hours late. And if you look back through the various flights in its history you'll see it's always 'late'., presumably due to customer requirements. Basing any sort of mainline flight load planning off the expectation of having a DPJ there 'as scheduled' would be (IMO) wreckless. Even the first flight on their Falcon 2000 CVG-ATL was late by about 50 min. Though I cant figure out what the point of that flight was. It went CVG-ATL and 30 min later flew to Fulton which was a 9 min flight. Did someone really charter it for a 9 min flight? Though from there it flew 1:40 to MKC where it spent the night before flying to TEB spending the night then heading to SEA.

flyerCO

Right now it's just repositioning, but what happens when they start deciding it's cheaper to use a private jet for a few passengers even if it's not a repositioning flight. DL would be able to sell high priced tickets and walk them to a private jet if the smaller commercial plane is overbooked.

xolinlevh

Given that a private plane generally is around $5,000 an hour to run I cant imagine they would start using them for anything other then upsells on repositions. A flight oversold by 5 people for example, even if they gave out $500 vouchers for VDB thats only a cost of $2500 to Delta. If they instead offered each of those 5 pax an upsell for $500 to private they would make $2500 instead of paying out $2500 which WOULD be the equivalent of a 1h flight on private (roughly). But then what if the flight is over 1h? What then do they do with the plane at its new destination? The extra costs for that and logistics of it would be hugely impractical.

*edit to add:*
I just priced out a F2000 (like DL used) for CVG-ATL tomorrow, quote i got was $19,400+tax=$20,863. I cant think of any situation where Delta would cut seats on a mainline and use a plane that costs that much and somehow come out ahead.