El Boocho

jtrout nice post. ^ We are pretty much in agreement.

Just a clarification the only mainline planes with less than 16 seats in FC are the MDs and the 737-700s. There are only 4 of the 737-7s, so I wouldn't worry too much about them. There are quite a few MDs, but I wouldn't call them most of the domestic fleet. DL has approximately 370 mainline aircraft in its domestic fleet. With 133 MD88/90s and 4 737-7s that is a little more than 1/3.

NW does have a higher F:Y ratio. The DC9s have a 34" pitch in FC though. Even on DLs tight MD88s it is 37" DL's other planes have FC pitch up to 40" while the best NW does is 37".

jtrout

Thanks for clarifying - I still have a bit to learn about DL's Fleet VS NW's

i'm glad to see some positive thinking out there amongst DL SM members.

El Boocho

I'm sure the former DL folks have a lot to learn about NW's fleet as well.

bowdenj

Great news!

mike_plat

I have Plat on both NW and DL. Does anyone know if I can now use a PMU on DL metal but put my WorldPerks number in the reservation? To date, I have not been able to. This limitation has cost DL a lot of my international business. In contrast, even before the merger was announced, I could put my SkyMiles number in a NW reservation upgraded with WP miles or upgrade certificate. No problem. DL reciprocity would be nice...

RSSrsvp

Folks I have removed a number of off topic personal remarks. Posts like this will not be tolerated by the moderators on any of FT's boards. Please stick to the topic at hand or you won't be allowed to play in this sandbox.

RSSrsvp - Moderator

MarkXS

One of the big concerns I think both airlines' elites have about reciprocal upgrades, is the discrepancy between F cabin sizes. Has anybody heard any info or rumors about plans to modify the fleets to sync up together?

And if they did, do you think they'd bring the DL fleet up to NW's generally larger F ratio or bring the NW fleet's ratio down?

This is an area where I think legacy-DL elites may have more to lose than legacy-NW elites, though I still think overall across the combined network it should all work out. This is in the context of the non-hub-captive NW elites like me (if I hadn't recently become a DL elite) who can go DEN-anyhub-Destination so legacy-DL immediately becomes equally attractive to legacy-NW in terms of convenience.

Hub captives, whether DL at ATL or NW at MSP, for example, are not likely to switch to the other network as much, and may see less incoming elites from the other network for destinations near the hubs.

With the bigger F cabins, even if a few more legacy-DL elites show up on an NW flight, there's still a decent chance an NW Silver might get the upgrade. On the smaller legacy-DL F cabins, this could make it tough for legacy-DL Silver or even Gold Medallions if a handful of legacy-NW Plats and Golds show up.

Of course all this presupposes that the fleet utilization stays pretty much the same. Until the merger closes, it will, at least with no cross-network fleet changes. Once the merger closes, if we start seeing NW pilots flying NW 319/320s from SLC-SFO and DL pilots flying DL MD88/90s from DTW-RDU, it could get unpredictable.

indufan

I would bet a lot of money that they won't "bring the DL fleet up".

El Boocho

I agree. The MDs will probably stay as they are and the DC9s will as well. The back is to different to make them interchangable.

There doesn't seem to be much fleet overlap. All I see are the 757s and the CRJ-900s. I think the NW 900s are similar to one of the versions of DLs 900s. For the domestic 757s, DL has 24 seats and NW has 22. In the long run, if it is economical to do so, I could see them adding 2 seats to the NW birds to make them swapable. Some of the Y set ups look a little different, so I'm not sure if it can be done economically

indufan

But not even all of the DL 757s have 24. Some have more, a few have less.

El Boocho

There are a couple of ex TWA 757s with 22, but my understanding was those were getting the BE refits for international service. The ones with more have the new IFE. I wouldn't expect DL to do that upgrade on the ex-NW 757-200s anytime soon. However, if there aren't weight issues, I bet the 753s get the new IFE and 26 seats in F. I have no inside info, just speculating based on what make sense to me...for whatever little that is worth.

indufan

Aren't there some ex ATA birds out there too with 22 seats?

El Boocho

Maybe. Then there were the Ex SQ too. Or are those the same as the ATAs? I haven't seen anything except the 24 and 26 seat set up in a while. I think I got in deeper than my fleet knowledge allows.

TTT

I just noticed on my next itin with a NW op, DL coded flight that the "Upgrade Status" has changed from "Not Available" to blank. I would assume after 10/28 I will see "Requested." Glad to see this finally happening. NW offers the most convenient routing for my trips to visit family so the prospect of FC will be nice^

indufan

No, we just went in about the same level. I couldn't go any farther either.