Does DL cancel an empty flight ever?
 

The Mrs. and I are flying from CVG-CDG in 8 weeks, and thus far, it appears as we are the only 2 people in EC and Economy, and only 2 blocked out seats in BE (1 of which I'm assuming is a pilot rest seat). Seems crazy that a 767 only 8 weeks out may have less than a dozen people booked (and that's assuming there's 8 people out there without seat assignments yet).

Any likelihood the flight will be canceled, or not just because of aircraft positioning?

My guess is no, but it could be down gauged (depending on schedule and positioning issues) to a 757 with BE and ETOPs and if IROPs occur (mechanical, weather, ATC delays, etc.), the load could be a factor in the decision of what to do.

You might want to investigate loads on other days and draw your own conclusion about whether the flight is likely to be suspended or discontinued from the schedule (not just on your flight date). Right after the merger, the MSP-CDG nonstop was suspended in the middle of the summer, rather than continuing the seasonal schedule until the fall as announced and planned. Remember, however, that the profitability of the flight is what matters, not just the number of occupied seats. Also, there could be an agreement about service or subsidies at CVG. (PIT is known to have such an arrangement for its DL TATL nonstop.)

Delta may have a contract to fly freight that helps support the flight. Also the return flight the next day could be quite full, thus supporting the need to fly over the previous evening. It is also possible there is a large tour group on the flight that has not been assigned seats.

I have seen them cancel domestic flights, such as the BOS-LGA shuttle for load reasons, but intl. is not very likely. You also have to check the load for the return flight and seat maps in general are not a good indicator for load.

I was on a flight to Europe once where everyone had at least a full row to themselves. Very, very empty flight.

I have also been on domestic flights at least twice where I have been the only passenger on the flight (back in NW days).

I'll second many of the prior posts; highly unlikely a TATL flight would be cancelled due to load. Shuttle flights, and high-frequency flights (DCA-ATL, etc) could face such cancellation from time to time, but that is quite infrequent. Probably the most common cancellation are shuttle flights on the weekend, where more than a handful of times (over 10 years) I've seen every other one cancelled on a Sunday (till the evening rush).

Two other things to highlight:
(1) With loads so low, this might be a good flight for people to look at if they were seeking low-miles award seats to CDG.
(2) This flight's days are numbered. This flight is a legacy of the CVG hub days; I'd put the over-under at one-two years before it is gone for good.

The OP should remember too that if the flight is cancelled/suspended/terminated, DL will rebook his party on another DL flight to CDG at no cost, including award tickets where inventory will be opened if necessary on flights the OP wants. It might mean another connection if they are starting from CVG, but if they begin in HSV, they could end up with better routing and schedules.

Bingo. That's the grand scheme of things. I picked CVG for the original layover because I really like the Skyclub there, and it was available for 60K miles, and how I have the CVG SC to myself a lot of times, unlike ATL/DTW. It is an award ticket, and don't mind the connection in CVG, even though it's not a redone 767. Heck, I may have EC all to myself (and most of economy also). So that's only about 20 rows each to ourselves.

The system kept booting me out of our 16 F/G seats, so I called just a bit ago, and the agent manually put us back in the seats, and couldn't figure out why it kept booting us out of the seats. So it may be that other people got booted from their seats also, and just have called in to get manually put in their seats. If I get booted again tomorrow from my seats, I'm gonna bet something's going to happen, like an equip change or something. The downside is, no chance for an op-up.

All the points raised prior are valid and cogent.

But to add to that. With the reduction of flights and crunching of schedules DL almost always has to move the metal from A to B so B can go to X the next day; otherwise it's a clusterF.

Unless in some random chance they could reconfigure the planes to make it all work. Which is not that unreasonable. An industrial engineer with a free afternoon could easily sort this out. But I bet you're flight will go full steam ahead!

You might want to check what fares availability is like. It's quite possible that for one reason or another seat assignments aren't registering so that all you see are your own seats (and crew rest in the front). It will at least give you a hint at how empty they are.

You mean reschedule, not reconfigure. Changing the arrangement of seats on an aircraft isn't going to help. Also, I think you're being overly optimistic about IE. It's not a task for an afternoon for a typical IE (although there would be some specialists with graduate-level degrees or lots of experience who might do well). Perhaps more importantly, the key is to do this in real time in a dynamic environment. Solving the problem in several hours doesn't do much good.

Bingo. GE Aviation and SNECMA fly turbofan engine parts back and forth daily. That is why this flight is not only empty, but still flies 7 days a week. Self loading cargo is just icing on the cake.

False. The other 6 TATL flights are long gone and this one would have followed immediately after those if it were going to go. Additionally, the would have cut it from 7 days a week to much less frequently if it was truly on the way out. See above.

Does a 75E have the legs for CVG-CDG?

I haven't checked, although if it's a lightly loaded flight on the bubble, DL could add a technical stop for fuel whenever the weight and weather are a problem on that day. It would be a pain for passengers, but help DL to keep this flight on the schedule.

True. Hadn't considered the Gander option.