N639DL

-30s are going this year
-40s are going the beginning of next year
-50s are gone by 2015

I think the DC9 configs are staying the same because of the short life left in them.

WidgetKid

I have to agree; probably won't see any change in them.

formeraa

OK, I'm a math guy (not a "beancounter" or an MBA) and I did this type of analysis at AA. Basically, given the Elite upgrade model at DL, the analysis of number of F seats on the 319 is pretty straightforward. Here it is:

4 F seats which are given free of charge to Elite Y passengers who paid a Y fare. (In this case, I make the Y fare minus F food and beverage costs)

versus

6 Y seats which are sold at Y fare (since load factors are at historically high levels, there will be a large percentage of flights where I actually sell the additional 2 seats) and the bonus is that I only have the cost of Y food and beverage (where I potentially can sell food and beverages)

Given that DL will still have the industry standard 12 F seats on the A319, I believe that they probably come out better with a 12 F cabin. That being said, 4 Elites per flight will be disappointed with the new configuration.

BenA

For one, you're missing accounting for fleet size - Delta flies 50+ A319s while they currently only have 21 M90s (although that size will probably double with the new purchases). You can't just count F seats, you need to count F seats-per-mile or F-seats-per-flight. You're also missing that the premerger M90 was configured very uncompetitively - it had by far the lowest FC percentage in the fleet IIRC.

More importantly, though, you're missing that you can't just avoid an A319 and take one of the newly configured MD90s or CRJ700s instead. The M90 has ~35 more seats, while the CRJ700 has ~65 fewer seats - and anecdotally they seem to often fly different missions (although I admittedly have seen the M90 on my SLC-SEA example flight before).

For a true comparison you really need to look at ~75-125 seat aircraft, and in that world once the DC-9s leave the fleet the regionals will be the only ones left with a >10% FC percentage. When the A319 and DC-9 were in the fleet, we could attempt to avoid the 73G... but now we're stuck. This is a clear message from Delta that narrowbody FC is not an important investment for the company - a valid move for the beancounters but one that directly makes the competition look more attractive for Delta's domestic elites.

As for the CRJ700 fleet, while I applaud that decision I expect it was needed to stay competitive with United for BE connecting traffic. United's CR7s are already configured with both a 6 seat F cabin and a surprisingly large Economy Plus cabin.

As long as the complimentary upgrades keep flowing, I'm in it for the long haul with Delta and will continue my loyalty... Delta FC > United E+ > Delta E-. But you'd better believe that the first time I'm #1-#4 on the list and miss an upgrade on a reconfigured A319, I'm gonna spend the entire flight thinking about how I could be sitting in Economy Plus instead counting my usable SWUs...

DiverDave

There is a theory in the thread at airliners.net that makes sense.

That poster believes that in addition to converting one row of FC into coach, that yet another row of coach will be added. That would make the net seat gain 8 seats.

The seatmap is the way it is so they don't oversell coach until the conversions are done.

Makes more sense than doing this just for two seats.

David

sbagdon

Noone outside of the company will ever know, yet I see this as a revenue-positive situation. Except for some very specific routes (which the A319 may not end up on), I don't see this being a revenue negativity issue.

As I've burned through mileage with premium seats (domestic and international) up to 11 months out and was able to assign seats, I've noticed a pattern that for a majority of the time, I'm the only person with a seat selected (maybe 1 other), and the seats don't start filling up until 1-2 weeks out (clearing buy-ups, op-ups, upgrades, etc?). And if upgrades for the last batch are held back for gate-upgrades, to leave room for last-minute premium seat buyers, DL still gets the premium fare, and the GAs will just gate-upgrade the empty seats.

I suspect that these smaller F-cabins will fit in well with medium-distance routes that have heavy Y-purchase, and light Elite pax (DTW-PBI/FLL/MIA?). In the short-term, figure it's better to get 6 more paid-Y seats, and loose 4 upgrade-F seats (that offer no immediate cash-flow).

TheMadBrewer

One other thing to throw in the mix -- if you standardize a group of planes with the same number of FC seats, it becomes easier to substitute and not piss off somebody who was upgraded but then downgraded because the new plane fewer FC seats.

timf

Delta has 7 A319s that they use for their charter operations. Since these are primarily used for the NBA, they do not need all of them during the off-season (summer), so they reconfigure some of them back to a standard domestic configuration. When it comes time for them to go back into charter configuration, they will have 108 Y-class seats from each of these aircraft that could be distributed to the remaining A319s in order to add the additional row of Y. This means that next summer the aircraft would either remain in charter configuration, or they would source additional Y seats at that time.

This is all just a guess, but the timing of when the reconfigured A319s start to appear is consistent with when the charter A319s would be going back.

lseflyer

These revenue discussions seem to ignore that if upgrades are harder to get, revenue on all Delta planes, not just these may go down, as people choose other airlines or not to fly that "optional" trip

WidgetKid

Ok thanks! You had me a bid confused there but thanks for clearing it up.

I will agree that I think this is a revenue positive situation, even for markets that have a very high premium demand because those routes are generally not operated by a 319.

BobH

+1

Two more seats on a plane this size is about 1.5% more revenue -- less the cost of the fuel because of the weight of the seats and passengers.

Bob H

DTWflyer

Agreed on a couple of points:

1) The seat maps are more or less blocking out seats so they don't oversell F (or Y) as they start the conversion process. For a period of time, there will be a mixed fleet of 12 & 16 F A319s. The conversion can easily be done overnight, but will probably take 6-8 weeks to complete.

2) To do a quick conversion, they will likely rip out Row 4 F seats, move up Row 5 seats to behind Row 3 (make that now Row 4), and add in a new row of Y seats as the new Row 5, effectively giving them a new row of Y behind F now without impacting anything from the exit row back.

3) Hopefully this means they will deploy the A319 on elite-light routes, like DTW-PBI/FLL/TPA, LGA-PBI/FLL/MCO, etc. Right now they are using them for a decent amount of Florida/Southeast - LGA/BDL/BOS flying. Not super elite-heavy, or elite-premium routes.

I sure won't appreciate less F seats on my weekly DFW-DTW flight, when there are at least 50+ elites on the A319. Plat on H fares isn't even good enough to upgraded as it is.

ClipperDelta

The M90s are not the only mainline aircraft that are increasing in F seats; the MD88s will have a 2 F seat increase (from 14 to 16), and there are over 100+ MD88s in the fleet...

fly747first

Thank you, ClipperDelta! Some people just refuse to see the positive aspects.

WidgetKid

+1. I think that this move was not made to anger elites, it was made because Delta research found that they could me more profitable even with an increase of only 2 seats.

fly747first, I agree. Thank you, ClipperDelta.