767-400 764 Delta One Suites & Premium Select Refurb Status and Trip Reports
 

The first frame to CAN for installation of suites, Premium Select, Comfort+ and main cabin went out 1-2-19. As details of the layout and seat map become available we can add to the Wikipost.

Will be interesting to see how many seats are removed from the J cabin on the 764s.

Yeah, given that at 40J they have the most J seats in the fleet.

I'm also interested in how this will affect TCON service, in particular JFK-LAX which typically sees around 3 764 flights per day. Will they move the 764s off? Will Premium Select become a TCON product?

This is a good question. My working hypothesis is that - at least in the forseeable future - Delta will put their 763s on the domestic D1 routes. The wording on the deployment of the "Suites" was very specific - they said all international widebodies and not all widebodies. Perhaps I'm drawing too much meaning where none was intended, but it seems odd to specify international instead of widebodies.

While the 764 have plenty of life, there are a lot of 763s that are going to be effectively EOL 2021-2023 - and it probably doesn't make sense to invest in a refurb (I figure if they can run it for 4+ years, a refurb makes sense.. anything less than that is probably putting good money after bad). My guess is that starting in 2021 and for the few years after that, a subfleet of non-refurbed 763s will run those D1 routes. After 2023 I assume they will have to start swapping in other planes, but who knows.

An added advantage of this would be keeping those old nearly dead birds close to home (and, therefore, MX facilities) given that they mostly run hub-hub routes.

There are around 25 763ERs that were delivered between 1998 and 2001(about 8 from 2000-2001, 8 from 1999, etc) which makes them around the same age as the 764s - approx 18-20 years. The oldest 763ERs still flying today date back to at least 1990 (some of the ex-Gulf ones may be even older), which means DL is still flying them at 27-28 years. So they can easily squeeze another 8-10 years of service from those 25, more than enough time to obtain a payback from a Suites refurbishment.

Agreed - most 763s will get the refurbs. I'm talking about the subset that are older - those that were delivered before '96 or so. There's about 15 of those, 7-10 of which will probably be able to make it to 2021 but not much beyond that. Those will be very, very near retirement and not worth the cost to refurb. Those are the ones that I bet get used for domestic D1. Apologies if I was not clear in my original post that I was referring to a subset of 763s and not the whole 763 fleet.

That's an interesting thesis but I'll point out that 27 year-old A320s got AVOD, and the 744s got lie-flats, bins, AVOD and new coach seats ~three to five years before they all went into retirement. It's going to depend on how much DL values product consistency.

I agree it's just a hypothesis and I could be wrong, and you are right that Delta is very good about refreshing the interiors of old planes. It just seems like a natural fit to me to solve a problem that they are going to have (either they will retire 763s early - which they are loathe to do - or they will end up with at least a set of 763s that get Suites in 2021 and then retire in less than 2-3 years). I guess we'll find out soon enough. :)

Another possibility is that Delta is truly going to run these 767s into the ground and basically keep them all running for 32+ years (rather than the 28-30 I assume). They seem to really like the economics on them - but still, the maintenance cost curve has to at some point catch up to them.

Can't wait to see how this turns out. 1-1-1 would be a very spacious cabin but not very couple-friendly.
I don't think they can fit 1-2-1.

Maybe they could do "throne seating":
1-1-1
1-2-1
1-1-1
1-2-1

Well, I have friends in a particular department at DL. I won't say much, but both the 764 fleet (as we already know) and the remaining 763s will be getting new D1 cabins. They will not be the exact same seat found on the 350/777 (though I'm told very similar, but not fully enclosed) as they won't fit in an economic manner. Older 763s will be getting retired as 339s come online (delivering with suites).

I knew this in my first post, I just wanted to see what everyone else thoughts were. The J cabin will be cut, roughly, in half on the 764 as well.

Not surprising given DL's overall strategy. I expect by the time this (763 and 764 refurb) is done $600 Z fares and most instrument backed upgrades will be a thing of the past on the TCONs, as DL starts selling one way $3000 "premium suite transcontinental service" fares, with "transcontinental premium select" replacing the former Z fare price point.

Historically, the TCONs went from 16F (738) to 16J (75E) to 16J lie flat (75S) to 26J (76Z) to 36J (767) to 40J (764) with the occasional 330, presumably in response to demand. So if the 764 goes to low-20J it's a bit of a return to the past, but then the question would be is this really cutting supply to match demand? IME the JFK-LAX flights usually sell 30+J (and eg this Monday mostly holds to that pattern). I suppose DL could always up frequency to make up capacity.

I realize the TCON service is something of the tail and not the dog when it comes to 763/764 utilization, but I think we already pretty well understand the impact of J cabin reduction on INTL service and I'm more curious how the premium domestic routes will be affected.

New config will have 238 seats as follows:

34 D1 Suites
20 Premium Select
28 Comfort Plus
156 Main Cabin

If this is true.. 20 Premium Select? That will be an odd layout.. presumably it will be 6 across so this means that there will be one row with only 2 seats (or perhaps 2 rows with 6, and two rows with 4?).

Given DL's other configs, it almost seems like 20J/34W is more likely... Have they had a problem filling the relatively large A350 W cabin?

Source?? This doesn't sound right to me