SWA 717s go to Delta
Southwest Airlines’ Boeing 717s are going to be subleased to Delta with deliveries of about 3 per month starting in 2013. Southwest thinks this is good for them as it gets their basic aircraft type back to one (the 737) and Delta thinks this is good as it is getting a cheap fleet type that can meet needs in the 100 seat category for longer “regional” flights.
Delta is a fan of the McDonnell Douglas aircraft and the 717 is just that. They are typically robust, long lasting aircraft and the cost to purchase these is often so low, they make sense even when their fuel efficiency isn’t the best.
One aspect of this deal seems a bit odd. I’m rather surprised that Southwest, Boeing and Delta didn’t work a deal to take them fully off Southwest’s books and transfer ownership either to Delta or create new leases for Delta. Both airlines are big Boeing customers and I would think that Boeing would want to facilitate a win/win deal between the two airlines.
“Delta is a fan of the McDonnell Douglas aircraft and the 717 is just that. “
Huh? I’m not sure what you mean by this. Delta has ninteen different Boeing products in the fleet, and that’s before absorbing the old AirTran 717s from SWA, vs. only *four* McDonnel-Douglas products. That’s in addition to the various Airbus, Canadair, and Embraer products, of course. Does any other carrier have quite the variety that Delta has? I suspect not.
I also rather suspect a typo in your blog entry…
-R
(variety is spicy)
Both Delta and Northwest Airlines historically bought Douglas and McDonnell Douglas aircraft predominantly. Both airlines retained their MD and DC fleets long after MD got merged with Boeing. Rather than “go Boeing” in a strong way, Northwest had moved to Airbus. Delta stuck with MD as long as it could and then went Boeing.
Today’s Delta does have a wide variety of types. In the mainline fleet, they are Boeing, Airbus and McDonnell Douglas / Douglas aircraft. The DC aircraft are being phased out completely now. In fact, the 717 aircraft will replace those remaining aircraft. There will remain a large(ish) fleet of MD-90 aircraft for some time and the Boeing 717 is actually the MD-95 renamed from the Boeing MD merger. There is a fair bit of commonality between the MD-90s and 717s although the engines are different.
The mix in the widebody fleet is Boeing / Airbus and most Boeings (767/777) came from Delta and the Airbus (A330) fleet came from Northwest. Northwest also contributed Boeing 747s.
Both airlines had Boeing 757 aircraft and Northwest was otherwise an Airbus / Douglas single aisle mainline fleet. Delta was a McDonnell Douglas / Boeing single aisle mainline fleet.
But historically, Delta and Northwest started off buying their jets from Douglas and then McDonnell Douglas. They did so right up until the late 1980s. Neither has the kind of relationship with Boeing that Continental/United/American Airlines had and has.