Delta Air Line Migrations Paper

Delta Air Lines has strived to maintain their top raked operations, including on time-departures, on time arrivals, and lack of cancellations. These achievements would not be attainable without the top-notch scheduling department that Delta Air Lines has created. Delta Air Lines currently operates a diverse fleet of 822 aircraft, allowing for flexibility when an issue involving scheduling arises. The scheduling department must take many factors into consideration in order to maintain their record number of on-time departures, on-time arrivals, and days without cancellation. Delta Air Lines currently operated a primarily older fleet of aircraft, although this has helped keep costs down these aircraft require more maintenance. The maintenance

Our best days are when they forget we even exist… when we hit the forecast perfectly” (Ledwich, Para. 14, 2015).

Delta Air Lines has been operating under the hub-and-spoke since 1955, when it was one of the first airlines to use this system. The hub-and-spoke system allows Delta Air Lines to connect passengers to their final destinations through a hub airport. One of the many reasons Delta Air Lines has been so successful is the amount of hubs they operate out of.

Delta Air Lines hub airports are: Atlanta, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Detroit, New York (JFK, LaGuardia), Boston, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Amsterdam, Paris, and Tokyo. In recent years Delta Air Lines has found it beneficial to grow partnerships with other airlines to aid in growing their global network. Delta Airlines has built partnerships with Virgin Atlantic Airways, China Eastern, Aeromexico, and GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes. This has “allowed Delta to compete more effectively on routes between the U.S. and those carriers’ respective countries, provide more travel options for its shared customers and invest in a better overall customer experience” (Ledwich Para. 2,

A majority of Delta Air Lines Aircraft are owned, but they are currently operating 180 leased aircraft. The average age of Delta Air Lines, which is much higher than most of their competition, is 17 years.

“As other airlines at the time spent billions to order hundreds of brand new fuel efficient Boeing 737s and Airbus A320 series aircraft to serve as the backbone of their domestic fleets, the used airplane market became flooded with older, but still very capable, MD80/90 series airliners. Delta snapped them up at a very low price” (Zhang, Para. 13 2016). Although, Delta Air Lines has been known for operating older aircraft they have recently placed orders with Airbus and Bombardier for some new state-of-art aircraft. Due to the age Delta Air Lines has decided to phase out their current fleet of Boeing 767-300ER and 747. To replace these aircraft, they have placed an order for “25 next-generation A350-900XWB and 25 upgraded A330-900neo” (Zhang, Para. 3, 2014). With the delivery of the new Airbus A350-900XWB Delta Air Lines will be launching its new Delta One business class, which will have a privacy door, and premium seats. Delta Air Lines has also announced that they will be the U.S. launch customer for the new Bombardier CS100s jet. In regards to the order of 75 of these jets Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines C.E.O., said “These new aircraft are a solid investment, allowing us