The DL decision was likely/hopefully made on the prospect of filling the 744's larger business capacity. Let's hope it works for them - it hadn't in decades for NW on this route.

wow, I'm glad I stumbled on this post. I'm flying JAX-NRT in september and planned on doing JAX-MSP-NRT or JAX-DTW-NRT on the 744, but now that I realize the 744 has no AVOD in Y, I'll be staying with the 777 from ATL. Although I'd prefer to fly to MSP/DTW first in J with an upgrade (PM), then a shorter flight to NRT in Y. Now looks like I'll have to suffer an extra few hours in Y flying into/out of ATL.

Does anyone else think the 777 exit row seats are like cardboard? Better to have AVOD and an average seat than no AVOD and shorter TPAC fight I guess.

There are only a few who are doing so, and a big ^ to delta for being one of the ones who are spending the cash to put the IFE on their 747's.

Aren't the DL 744's 80's vintage? That would make them some of the oldest long haul aircrafts in the sky wouldn't it? Maybe the money would be better spent ordering more 777's.

Not all. The oldest were delivered in 1989 (the first 744 built), the newest in 2002.

A number were delivered in 89/90, but a few were delivered as recently as 2002. NW was the launch customer for the 744 in 1989. I guess that makes them 80's vintage, but just barely. The leases were coming up on the 89/90 deliveries in 14/15. As has already been covered in a number of threads, DL had to decide whether to extend the leases or return them to the lessors and sell the 4 remaining owned aircraft. There probably wouldn't be any return on investment on upgrades if they were ultimately going to return the aircraft 4-5 years after the upgrades were complete. Ultimately, they decided to extend the leases and upgrade the aircraft. I'm guessing JAL's decision to dump their 35 744's had something to do with it (that's a lot of 744's to dump on the market, and the lessors probably gave DL a rock bottom deal to extend the leases).

Correct.

UA has 8 of their 744s stored right now, BA has 12, JAL has a ton, there are a lot of 744's that still have a lot of lifetime left that are being laid up right now so I'm sure that DL was able to secure good terms to maintain the inherited 744 fleet.

Thanks for posting that, great picture.

This sort of picture breaks my heart... I'm sure others here can understand.

Me too!

I understand that the BA 747's are just being 'stored' rather than left to be scrapped or sold, and there are plans to hopefully reintroduce them to the fleet.

Not sure about the UA ones though, UA is pretty much only using their remaining 744 fleet to Asia now and all the Europe routes are on 763 or 777, although there is a daily domestic rotation for this fall on a 744 SFO-ORD-SFO.

I just got off the NRT/DTW flight on a 747-400 seated in upper deck BE. I had seat 73A which was touted by seatguru as one of the best. I enjoyed the flight but the seats were not, I repeat not lay flat. On the trip to NRT I flew from ATL in a 777 with lay flat seats and I gotta tell you it was a much better experience. I don't know what you call the seat that's not lay flat but it leaves you at a wierd down angle, Next time I'll take a stronger sleeping pill.

"Flat" and "Horizontal" are different. For a taller person, there was no room for my feet which were painfully compressed .

+1. I much prefer the pods on the 777 vs. the 744. I flew DTW-NGO-MNL on the 744 and I didn't sleep much. I felt like I was sliding toward the floor.

And in the picture: how about that UA 744 in their new livery sitting there? "Let's paint the plane in our new colors and then put it in the desert."

If you look closely, you'll see there are 3 744's in the new UA livery

To be honest, I don't know if the left hand was talking to the right at UA because they also repainted a bunch of the 737's in the new livery shortly before they announced the entire 737 fleet was to be grounded. You can see some new livery 737's in the pic too off to the top right.