With the Boeing 787 finally entering the fleet in 2020 I thought it might be interesting to see where it might be used. These are just my own opinions and nothing is official. The airline industry will eventually spiral downward again and a smaller plane like the 787 is far more appropriate for most routes than something huge like the A350. You just can't profitably fill that many seats.

Expansion:

LAX-MEL
SEA-GRU
ATL-PVG (Tried in the past but 777 may have been too much capacity)
ATL-PEK
ATL-BOM/DEL (DL currently has no presence in India leaving only EWR-DEL on UA)
JFK-HND (DL needs a Tokyo presence from NYC)
ATL-ADD
ATL-CPT

And needless to say the 787 is the only realistic option to replace the 767. Any other widebody is simply too big. So all current 767 flights would be taken over by the 787.

Airbus 330-200 is only slightly larger than the 767-400.

Enter??? Wiki: "There were 423 Boeing 787 aircraft in airline service as of July 2016." Unless i am in a time warp, this is past the enter stage.

Like others, I am also curious. Is "Love of Future Flying a 787" considered Politics or Religion?

Well of course the Boeing 787 is in service but it won't fly for Delta until 2020 thanks the greedy and ill-minded previous CEO Richard Anderson.

I am guessing by the routes and his request to move it to the DL forum, he is referring to in Delta's fleet.
I wonder who is getting rid of their 787s? Delta hasn't bought an actual new plane since the 777 was released.

Assuming this was meant for the DL forum, I would say:

I might add:

DTW-HKG (the previous birds were way too much capacity)
SEA-HKG (better suited than the A330)
LAX-HND (stay in the market but keep capacity in check)
SEA-TPE
MSP-ICN (if they ever manage a JV with KE)

I could also see a some used for "short" trips across the Atlantic for better utilization.

And to keep this OMNI/PR related:

LOL, concession accepted.

A330-200: 234 seats. There are only 11 A330-200 in the fleet

A330-300: 293 seats There are 29 A330-300 in the fleet

767-400: 246 seats There are 21 767-400 in the fleet

767-300: 211 seats There are 58 767-300 in the fleet

The 767-400 is relativley young and will be around for a good while. I would imagine the 787-9 would be a fantastic replacement. The A330-800 replaces the A330-200 and it is not selling well and is a very heavy aircraft for what it does.

The 787-8 seems to be the only suitable replacement for the 767-300 unless Boeing finalizes plan for their new MOM aircraft. Airbus has no aircraft for the lower end of the widebody market.

Yep the 787 isn't entering their fleet sooner thanks to Richard Anderson. He was brilliant in some ways, and completely insane in others. We'll see how Ed manages.

Is there any chance Delta could cut a deal with another airline to swap some of the A350s for 787 slots? the Middle Eastern airlines seem to love Airbii. Maybe Delta could cut some kind of deal there? Delta really NEEDS to get the 787 into the fleet earlier than 2020!

DL is starting to get A330 and shortly A350s. No need for 787s right away. Also DL has publicly stated they have rights to convert 787 orders to 737. I highly doubt were going to see 787s at DL.

Sea Gru 0 chance. All others I can see.

It seems some of you don't understand that the A330 and A350 are huge jumps in capacity over the 767. JFK-NCE, ATL-MXP, MCO-GRU, etc would be completely unviable on anything bigger than a 787.

Maybe SEA-SIN and LAX-GRU?

SEA-GRU is extremely unlikely. Could only happen if SEA grew substantially larger in East Asia. They obviously planning on growing SEA-East Asia, but I don't think it will grow to the point that it would have enough traffic to support onward connections to GRU.

For SEA, I could see 787 making service viable to: TPE, MNL, SIN, BOM, DEL. I could see them trying KIX, KUL, CGK, and BKK, but I don't think those would be successful. If added service to TPE and KIX were successful, and existing service from SEA to HKG, NRT(ideally subbed out with daytime HND), ICN, PEK, PVG all had substantial growth, then SEA-GRU could maybe viable.

A330 isn't a huge jump. A350 yes very big jump. Regardless 767s are here to stay for awhile and right now just don't see the 787 entering service at DL.