Originally Posted by
ethernal
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.
There are around 25 763ERs that were delivered between 1998 and 2001(about 8 from 2000-2001, 8 from 1999, etc) which makes them around the same age as the 764s - approx 18-20 years. The oldest 763ERs still flying today date back to at least 1990 (some of the ex-Gulf ones may be even older), which means DL is still flying them at 27-28 years. So they can easily squeeze another 8-10 years of service from those 25, more than enough time to obtain a payback from a Suites refurbishment.