Originally Posted by
bennos
I'm also interested in how this will affect TCON service, in particular JFK-LAX which typically sees around 3 764 flights per day. Will they move the 764s off? Will Premium Select become a TCON product?
This is a good question. My working hypothesis is that - at least in the forseeable future - Delta will put their 763s on the domestic D1 routes. The wording on the deployment of the "Suites" was very specific - they said all
international widebodies and not all widebodies. Perhaps I'm drawing too much meaning where none was intended, but it seems odd to specify international instead of widebodies.
While the 764 have plenty of life, there are a lot of 763s that are going to be effectively EOL 2021-2023 - and it probably doesn't make sense to invest in a refurb (I figure if they can run it for 4+ years, a refurb makes sense.. anything less than that is probably putting good money after bad). My guess is that starting in 2021 and for the few years after that, a subfleet of non-refurbed 763s will run those D1 routes. After 2023 I assume they will have to start swapping in other planes, but who knows.
An added advantage of this would be keeping those old nearly dead birds close to home (and, therefore, MX facilities) given that they mostly run hub-hub routes.