Originally Posted by
fly18725
Delta's (fka Northwest) operating philosophy is nothing like PMUA's outside of the dependence on older aircraft. Northwest and Continental were much more similar in those respects.
Delta does have a very unique fleet strategy.
Not really. Northwest was generally super reliable even at MSP and DTW in the middle of winter with a great computer system. NW exceeded at IRROPS, CO always pooped the bed during it because of not having enough schedule padding, available seats, or aircraft. If anything, NW philosophy has dragged up DL's o/t rating since was pre-merger it wasn't great.
CO philosophy of "domino affect" scheduling is alive and well at UA. Hence a 738 being backed up with one rolling delay if it flies ORD-EWR-SDQ-EWR-FLL-EWR-SFO. Look at flightaware -- these are the types of CO schedules that contributes to the sub 80% on-time rating.