Originally Posted by
USirritated
If I had to pick one overriding weakness (of quite a few, but some good strengths too) of Richard Anderson, it is capacity utilization, and proper equipment positioning to avoid issues such as sending a 149 pax capacity plane out with just 48 pax. Clearly, DL would know far enough in advance to do an intelligent equipment swap for a flight which is not going to be at even 50% capacity.
However, even though a smaller plane would clearly be in order, the smallest DL mainline planes, capacity wise, are the DC-9-50s, which carry 125 pax each, and the B737s, which carry 124 pax each. Both of those planes would still be too large for this situation, and it is not possible for DL to substitute a DL Connection carrier with a 70 pax plane instead.
Finally, even though Anderson and company is weak on capacity utilization and equipment positioning, there might be a need for this capacity of the subject plane whereever it is flying to for its next scheduled flight. Hard to judge on this particular issue with just the information provided.
Geez, don't you think that armed with only this tiny snippet of information, your comments are a bit over the top?
You have absolutely no idea of how this flight does on average. You have no idea of how the load was on the flight into PIT. You have no idea where the equipment is needed most later in the day. You have no idea what the cargo load was. You have no idea of the fare mix on this flight.
It is a much more complex decision-making process than simply how many people were on this plane on this given day.