Originally Posted by
Duke787
Wow -- unfortunate given they just spent the money doing the refurbs (I enjoyed my D1 trip on ICN - MSP this past fall).
Can't imagine this bodes well for Boeing and the 777X program. I know DL isn't a 777X customer but if they are retiring 777s they already own (I don't believe they lease any of the 777s, I believe they are all wholly owned by DL) that's a very bad sign for the 777X program because who is going to buy new 777Xs if they don't even want perfectly good 777s with brand new interiors?
I mean the reality is that all large widebodies are going to have trouble in the "new normal".
That said, long-haul flying has very different economics than short-haul flying. Fuel efficiency is much, much more important. Delta and other high labor cost airlines don't care much about how fuel efficient a 600 mile segment is for a 150 seater, but definitely does on a 6000 mile segment. on a 300 seater. There is always "more" incentive to buy new, fuel efficient widebodies over fuel efficient narrowbodies. It's probably one of the reasons the 777 got the axe.
Right or wrong, I also wonder if Delta regrets bucking the trend and going 9-abreast in the 777. I realize that more seats in a low demand market isn't really a great answer, but I'm sure that the CASM calculations were hard to swallow and justify in this environment. If they were 10-abreast, Delta may have found a reason to keep them for their hub trunk routes.
At the end of the day, I'm not surprised. Delta needs the 767s for their route network. Other than BOM and JNB, they don't need the 777. If they have excess widebodies, it makes sense that they cut the 777 first. The only reason why they wouldn't is that they had just refurbished them... but that is a sunk cost and Delta is (rightly) not falling into a sunk cost fallacy. That money was already spent.