Originally Posted by
bgriff
Delta doesn't have a choice, short of Ch 11, to stop paying the financing payments for newer aircraft, so they might as well run newer aircraft that are more fuel efficient and have lower maintenance costs and park the older ones (this is offset somewhat by the fact that most of their newer aircraft are also bigger, but I imagine it still works out in favor of the newer aircraft). In the short term the ownership cost of their fleet is a fixed cost, but the cost incurred by operating each flight is up to the choice of which aircraft stay in the air.
Not sure how long it takes for the price of oil to work its way through to the price of jet fuel, but with oil having crashed, the smartest move is to run the MD-88s, especially with DL's strategy to use every ounce of life in a a/c. A/c have a life of only so many hours/cycles - you might as well use up the life of gas guzzlers while fuel is cheap rather when it bounces back. Ya, its more expensive to use this strategy in the short term, but it will be much cheaper overall in the long term.