DLASflyer

Bloomberg is reporting Delta and Airbus are in talks to defer 40+ aircraft scheduled for delivery this year. Nine others will reportedly be delivered, sold and leased back. These include five Airbus A321s, two A350s and two A330neos.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-past-year-end

cmd320

I'm honestly pretty surprised it took them this long to arrive at this decision. Doesn't make a lot of sense to be taking delivery of/paying for new aircraft when you have existing ones sitting idle.

MSPeconomist

It might be cheaper for Dl to take delivery and park the aircraft than to break the contract. As outsiders, we don't know all the details of the deal. Cancelling the contract could also impact other deliveries that DL does want to receive (on schedule).

LoganFlyer

For people who like numbers, here are the Airbus planes DL was scheduled to have delivered this year, according to page 26 of their 2019 yearly SEC filing, vs. how many have been delivered so far in 2020:

A220-100: 17 scheduled to be delivered, 3 actually delivered.
A220-300: 6 scheduled to be delivered, 0 actually delivered.
A321-200: 31 scheduled to be delivered, 6 actually delivered. The 7th is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.
A321-200neo: 1 scheduled to be delivered, 0 actually delivered.
A330-900neo: 7 scheduled to be delivered, 2 actually delivered. The 3rd is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.
A350-900: 4 scheduled to be delivered, 2 actually delivered. Of those 4, 2 were to be brand new from Airbus and 2 were to be from LATAM. DL has taken the 2 brand new planes from Airbus and cancelled the order from LATAM.

So what's left based on the original 2020 plan, excluding the planes scheduled for delivery tomorrow, is 14 A221s, 6 A223s, 25 A321s (24 ceos & 1 neo), and 4 A339s, for a total of 49 Airbus planes. (For completeness, there's also 4 CR9s DL hasn't taken delivery of.)

ab2013

It may have taken them this long because they’ve probably needed to negotiate with Airbus behind the scenes and had a hard time getting what they wanted.

MSPeconomist

Can we assume that the two aircraft scheduled for delivery tomorrow will actually be delivered? It would obviously be harder to cancel delivery at such a late stage, when they're not only painted in DL livery and equipped with the specified equipment/configuration/interiors/seating but also probably en route.

LoganFlyer

Based on past patterns (including a number of planes delivered in the last month,) I would be very surprised if the deliveries were cancelled at this point. Here are the Flightaware links for anyone who wants to track them:

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N105DX (A321)
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N406DX (A339)

MSPeconomist

So the A321 is already in the USA and about to fly a special section flight to MSP, while the A339 will depart Toulouse in about five hours. Cool.

cmd320

The more recent batch of 321s are actually built in the US at the Airbus facility in Mobile Alabama.

LoganFlyer

The A321 flight is a delivery flight. Most of the A321s DL accepts are built in Alabama, not ferried over from France.

MSPeconomist

Thanks--that makes sense. I would expect the delivery to be to a DL hub, not some random airport served by DL, although the A339 stop in AMS is a bit strange given that the aircraft can certainly fly to the just about anywhere in the USA nonstop from Toulouse.

Mountain Explorer

It's not a stop in AMS. Delivery and induction happens at AMS. If DL puts that plane into service, I suspect it will fly on to the US with passengers

MSPeconomist

That's fast. I would have expected DL to first use the new aircraft on a couple shorter (domestic transcontinental?) flights to check it out.

Once I was on a brand new 737-900 that was scheduled from MCI to MSP. The pilot's preflight announcement made a big deal about this being brand new plane. I knew that it was bigger and different from the aircraft type normally used on the route, which would have been a DC-9 or MD-88 or similar. The implication was that DL and the crew were checking it out before putting it into service on its longer/larger intended routes. [It was really fun to try out and experience the new aircraft with the crew.]

OTOH I also recall being on a TPAC 777 MSP-NRT flight where none of the FAs had previously flown a 777, back when it was new and especially new to MSP. I had previously flown it several times on a DTW connection to/from Asia, so it was amusing and cool to suggest to the purser where to look (bins above my favorite 7A seat) for certain service items. On that one, the pilots might have checked it out first, but clearly the MSP-based FAs hadn't and it wasn't obvious how much training they had had on the 777 (especially with respect to service protocols) before our flight beyond safety procedures such as door location and operation, including slides, rafts, etc. The galley setup was clearly completely new to them.

Maybe it's my inherent geekiness, but I'm fascinated to observe (and remember) stuff like this.

N830MH

Right! They are not ferried from Airbus facility in TLS. They actually ferried on a big boats.

What about A321neo? When they will delivered?

Grouchy

Wasn't Delta planning to base one or more new A330 at AMS?
IIRC if Delta manages to keep it as an international-only plane for 6 months it can avoid the 25% import duty normally charged.

Seem to be worth it for Delta Air Lines during the COVID-19 pandemic were demand isn't that high.