Delta's Newest Planes Come Courtesy of AirTran and Southwest
Did you hear about all the new airplanes that Delta has on order? Well, don’t get too excited about luxurious seating surfaces or cutting edge in-flight entertainment, because they’re just getting ready to acquire another airline’s leftovers.
In case you didn’t hear, Southwest is in the process of gobbling up AirTran and incorporating the carrier into their great big, luving family. As a result there’s going to be plenty of leftover Boeing 717s without a home, and that’s where Delta comes in. Delta is interested in scooping up the pre-owned planes as part of a pretty large deal, as they still think there’s plenty of life left in them. This will especially be the case for hops in and out of their hubs in spots like Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Detroit.
In total there will be 88 of the 717-200s heading to Delta, as Southwest will lease the planes to them beginning sometime next year. The deliveries will trickle in through 2015, so it’ll be quite some time before all the 717s will be flying in their own colors and livery. Delta expects to save like hundreds of millions of bucks in both fuel and maintenance costs thanks to the new planes, so they’re clearly spending some money to make money.
Delta hasn’t revealed any of their plans for possible refurbishments or renovations before adding these planes to their fleet, but we’re pretty darn sure they’ll be WiFi enabled. After all, the planes probably already have the necessary technology bits and pieces from their time at AirTran.
[Photo: redlegsfan21]
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