DL 2531 (BOS-LAX) 12/3 - what a disaster!
 

DL 2531 on Tuesday, 12/3, was scheduled to leave at 5:30pm, but didn’t leave until Wednesday morning at 10am after *multiple* rolling delays. I live in the Northeast and am aware of the storm. But B6, UA and AA ALL had BOS-LAX flights Tuesday afternoon and evening and all of them left with a few hours delay.

Why on earth was DL delayed almost 24-hours when BOS is a hub???

It looks like the plane was 4 hours delayed arriving into Boston and we don’t know what sort of mechanical or crew issues there were. Boston is not a pilot crew base so if a pilot timed out they would need to bring one in from elsewhere.

Does DL have any other hubs that aren’t pilot crew bases? SEA, SLC, LAX, CVG, DTW, etc??

MCO I believe is cabin crew only. Other hubs only have bases for certain equipment. So while SEA has a base, I am not sure if A320 series is one of them so if an A319 pilot times out they would have to bring in one from an A320 base.

Was this the plane that dropped the raft?

No -- that was a 763, whereas this flight is apparently a 752.

I'm surprised they couldn't rebook you onto BOS-ATL/DTW/MSP/SLC/SFO/SEA-LAX and they had to delay until the next day. This is one of the reasons why I fly Delta out of Boston on BOS-SEA as opposed to Jet Blue. If Delta gets delayed on the BOS-SEA nonstop they can rebook through one of their hubs.

In defense of OP, this would have been a hard call to make given the time of departure and the rolling delays. There would have been only a few other options after 5:30 with short layovers. If DL is saying we will depart a few hours late and a bunch of flights are being delayed to weather and with the info you have, you would arrive at the same time on the direct as you would on the connecting itinerary, the safe bet is to take the direct flight to avoid a weather related misconnect. Hindsight is 20/20, but having been in similar situations, it is a very difficult call to make.

While unfortunate, give AA a try for 2 weeks and you'll come stampeding back to DL. Don't get me wrong, any delay such as this is unacceptable. Just don't mistake that for the odds being better at AA.

That stinks, I've had some bad situations, but not as bad as yours.

Can't really compare delays between airlines. One airline may have spare planes at a certain airport while the other doesn't. Obviously the planes come from all over so there could be things that happened early in the day that caused the flight to be delayed. If the flight was delayed 24 hours why didn't you try and get on another flight? Typically they will delay flights for that time but most people at that point have gotten on earlier flights so it doesn't really hurt many people.

A319/320/321 pilots can and do fly any of the models, they are not exclusive. Similarly 757/767 pilots fly both models, the exception being the 767-400 which at Delta is a separate pilot category. At United however 757/767-300/400 models are all flown under the same category.

Same pilot category means unified seniority list and same pay scales, right? So the interchangeable 757/767-300 pilots are probably paid somewhat less and a bit less experienced on average than the 767-400 pilots (which would be a smaller group because it's fewer planes in the group too, and perhaps restricted to a limited list of crew bases)?

To me, it seems strange that a narrow body and wide body aircraft would be the same category since they seem like such different aircraft in obvious ways, but of course they're both Boeing of roughly the same vintage (with a lot of variation in aircraft age), so I would expect the cockpit arrangements and automation to be similar, although I'm not convinced on the surface that the 757 and some 767s would behave similarly, especially in unusual/emergency situations.

Is the A350 its own category or is it grouped with at least some of the A330s?

I'm guessing that the 777 is its own category, just as I assume the 747 was (and those pilots would have been the top dogs).

MSPeconomist 777/787 is a common type rating. I was under the impression most airlines in the western world shy away from having pilots crew multiple variants under the same type rating because as you say there are subtle differences; only example I can think of locally is AirNZ SOs (but not captain or FOs) fly both 77/78.

I believe airbus a320 family is less of an issue and they can fly all types routinely within the same “line”

I am quite aware of that. What I was saying is that since, IIRC, SEA is not a pilot base for A319/320/321 even though it is a base for other aircraft types, if a pilot on one times out while in SEA then DL would have to bring in one from another base.