dcline414

A lot of these 717s (coming from FL, prior to acquisition by WN) were flying routes from ATL to Florida and other outposts in the SE. I would expect that they will stay based in ATL.

Also, I believe another poster mentioned that the FL 717 simulators in ATL will go to DL as well... yet another reason to have ATL-based pilots.

sipples

Airtran's only hub was Atlanta, so obviously their 717s served destinations from Atlanta. Delta has more hubs (and focus cities), so they have more options. It'd be surprising if Delta didn't take advantage of those greater options in some way.

A very weak reason. The simulators could be moved (or not), and Delta has no problem getting pilots to/from Atlanta for training.

If Delta bases 717s in Atlanta, I don't think that'll be the only place they're based.

dcline414

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that they would be ATL-exclusives. But I do think they are "right sized" for many of the destinations that only have non-stop service to ATL.

Of course with FL out of the picture soon (and WN only having 737s), Delta could up their capacity on these routes if WN reduces some of their capacity.

CMK10

While I'm certainly happy, my biggest reservation is that the planes are currently in pretty bad shape inside the passenger cabins. If DL doesn't spend a decent amount of money to fix them up then we're going to have a sub-par experience in a ratty cabin.

Delta 764

From what I heard, DL will not be keeping the existing AirTran Recaro seats; they will install their own brand new seats (presumably either Weber 5751 or B/E Aerospace Pinnacle) in Y.

LegalTender

I don't find them worse or better than other cabins on average.

Except for the hole in the armrest where SWA ripped out the XM/Sirius sat radio players.

LarryJ

The location of the simulators does not affect how the aircraft our deployed. If the simulators are in a location other than the pilot's domicile then he's deadheaded to training for his once every nine-months simulator events.

MSPeconomist

This is one concern, but even if DL rehabs the interiors, I've heard that these aircraft will be configured with only 12 FC and this is bad news for elites who like upgrades. It's bad enough that MSP now has so many routes served with the 12 FC A319 and especially 12 FC A320, where the ratio is particularly bad.

dcline414

The good news is, the 717 is smaller (thus has a better FC and EC ratio). As I posted on one of the (yet another) duplicate threads about this:

I'll go ahead and add the Airbuses:
MSPeconomist, I know you think my analysis is flawed due to my lowly GM status and the fact that I am ATL-based (and thus never get upgrades). But the cabin ratios don't lie, and I'll take the fully refurbished 717s that are already newer and will have brand new interiors over anything else in the Delta fleet.

MSPeconomist

I would prefer to take the DC-9s or 757s (but not the BE version with 16 FC).

In a previous post on this, you seemed to focus on the percentage of FC + EC seats, while I care about the the ratio counting only the FC seats. To me, EC is an unsatisfactory substitute for an upgrade.

dcline414

Hey even DMs may not be 100% for upgrades on elite-heavy routes. If you can't get the upgrade, EC is at least near the front and has a bit of extra room.

I'd rather see the total FC+EC seats be at least 40% of the overall capacity. Not sure what DL is thinking when they KNOW that at least 25% of the pax on their hub routes are GM+. This already needs to be expanded and it's not even rolled out yet!

MSPeconomist

Yeah, when I look at the seat maps with EC, I wonder what DL is thinking. On UA, it looks like the space allocated to Y+ is about the same as the total space for Y-, so without counting rows, the impression is that coach is about 40-45% Y+ and 55-60% Y-. This is very different from DL's model and will not make people happy if those eliteswho buy expensive last minute tickets can't get into EC. It could be an expensive mistake if aircraft need to be reconfigured yet again to double the size of EC.

timf

I agree, it doesn't make much sense. Delta's reasoning appears to be add Economy Comfort by eliminating as few seats as possible. They accomplished this through different methods on various aircraft types including eliminating hard bulkheads, replacing rows of F with Y, or reducing pitch of other rows. Only where absolutely necessary did they remove entire rows, and in most cases they only removed half rows. United on the other hand removed a full row from each aircraft which gave them as many as 8 rows with increased legroom.

I can already predict the threads on here with people complaining that Economy Comfort was full and they were stuck in a reduced-pitch row. To do it properly, every row from the front of Y through the exit rows (with the exception of MD aircraft) should be designated Economy Comfort. As it stands now, Delta probably won't even be able to realize much additional revenue from the sale of Economy Comfort because what few seats exist will be filled by Medallions who missed their upgrades.

3Cforme

High fare class last-minute tickets with upper-level elites have great upgrade priority to gain entry to the always-too-large inventory of F seats held for sale.

MSPeconomist

This really only helps DMs, not PMs so much on elite heavy routes. It's worse if they have missed the DM/PM window at T-6. This assumes of course that corporate travel policies frown on the purchase of FC even when it's not much more expensive.