Originally Posted by
kjnangre
No. Replacing inefficient planes with efficient ones, getting rid of oddball small fleets (777 is the smallest fleet at DL) and consolidating onto a few larger fleets, is the whole point.
But ultimately heading toward only 350s and 339s for long-haul seems to be over-consolidating. I would have to think the maintenance/simplicity benefits are not enough to outweigh the lack of flexibility -- you'd end up with too many routes where you're using either too small a plane or too big a plane, and that's obviously sub-optimal for profitability also. The 350/339 have 306/281 seats, The 763 is much smaller at 208-226 and the 764 is going to 238. Even with the 767s in the fleet arguably there's a big gap in that ~240-280 seat size, and losing the 767s means you don't have anything for thinner routes when the demand returns. Hmm.