It had been rumored for a long time, but Delta finally made it official during its recent earnings call when it said it had ordered 30 Boeing 787-10s with options for 30 more. On the surface, it seems strange that Delta would go back to Boeing for a big airplane after being Airbus-only for so long. But there is, as is always the case with Delta, a method to this madness. Still, there has to be more to come, because there’s still more replacement needed.
If we look at Delta’s long-haul fleet today, it looks something like this (give or take a few shells):
- 13 B757-200s with flat beds (168 seats)
- 37 B767-300s (most with 216 seats)
- 11 A330-200s (223 seats)
- 20 B767-400s (238 seats)
- 21 premium-heavy A350-900s (275 seats)
- 39 A330-900neos (281 seats)
- 31 A330-300s (282 seats)
- 19 premium-light A350-900s (306 seats)
As you can see, there are a lot of old airplanes in that fleet. You know how many of those 50 B757s/B767s were delivered in a year starting with a “2”?
Two of them. (B757-200 N723TW was delivered to TWA in January 2000 while B767-300ER N178DZ was delivered to Delta in May 2000.)
But that’s not all. The B767-400ERs were all delivered between 1999 and 2002 while all the A330-200s and 21 of the A330-300s came in between 2003 and 2007.
With these airplanes aging out, the time has come for Delta to start replacing them. And since it is not easy to get delivery slots, this became a more urgent issue to get an order on the books.
Some of the replacements are already happening. The domestic market, for example, appears to be largely set.
It has been reported that Delta will outfit 21 of its A321neos with flat beds to handle much of the domestic premium duty that the B757s handle today… and more. Those will undoubtedly replace some of the work done by the B767-300ERs as well in the domestic market. I’m sure there will still be some widebodies that fly the domestic network, but this should be the domestic flagship.
The other relatively easy region to look at is the Pacific.
Yes, I’m aware this is overly-simplistic, but the A350 has been Delta’s Asian airplane of choice for some time. Now that Delta has taken premium-heavy aircraft with 275 seats instead of 306, those have found a happy home in the Pacific, but that may be something of a temporary situation.
Delta has already placed an order for 20 A350-1000s which will give Delta even more capacity on Asian routes that need it. Not everything will be an A350-1000, but my assumption is that this is where that airplane will shine. It’s a big airplane, and Asia can support big airplanes quite nicely.
Of course, some of that flying will be growth to places like India and new Asian destinations, so I imagine A350-900s will continue in the market as well. But those are the two airplanes that will dominate this region.
But then, there’s the Atlantic. This is the most complicated fleet composition and it’s the one that has the oldest and smallest aircraft. I’ll include Latin in here since it’s the same fleet, but Latin is just a blip compared to the massive Transatlantic operation.
Presumably Delta will keep flying its A330-900neos in this market. There is an outstanding option for 10 of those airplanes, but I believe the order itself has been fully delivered. This is a great Atlantic airplane. At the same time, I would expect the A350-900s will continue in these regions and may very well see the fleet grow as -1000s populate the Pacific. This is a bigger airplane that’s good for those hub-to-hub routes like Paris and Amsterdam.
That leaves us with a bunch of old airplanes that need replacement, some sooner than others.
The most immediate need has to be the 20-or-so 216-seat B767-300ERs flying internationally — especially in summer to Europe — along with the 20 238-seat B767-400ERs. Those 40 aircraft are all at least 24 years old today, and they will almost all be thirty before the first replacement arrives.
These are pretty small airplanes in the scheme of things, and Delta has now decided it does not care for small airplanes. Instead, it ordered those big B787-10s. This is Delta’s first Boeing widebody order since… well, I can’t count that high. It’s been a minute.
We don’t know how many seats will be on the B787-10s, but assume there will be around 300. (United, to compare, has 318 seats while British Airways has a mere 256.) That’s a big jump over what is flying today, but hey, upgauging is the name of the game over there.
Why not order the B787-8 to match capacity? First, that assumes Delta wants to match capacity and isn’t more interested in growing gauge, which we have known to be true. But second, the -8 isn’t a great airplane. It’s not going to deliver the same kind of cost efficiency. The -9 is a good airplane with range, but Delta doesn’t need range here. Also, it apparently preferred something… that’s pretty much the same capacity as the A350-900, so… there’s that.
The first deliveries don’t show up until way down the line in 2031. You can be sure that with that date so far away and the fact that Boeing really, really wanted to get Delta back into the fold as a widebody customer, Delta got a great deal on this order.
On top of that, Delta has opted for the GE GEnx engines. Its A350s and A330-900neos are all Rolls-powered airplanes, so this gives Delta a good balance. In today’s world where aircraft engine manufacturers fight to see who can be least reliable, having multiple options in the fleet is an important hedge.
Sure, there’s the argument to be made about fleet and engine commonality and all that, but we aren’t talking about tiny fleets here. Besides, Delta’s TechOps likes to work on every airframe and engine known to man anyway. It’s good for (their) business. And if the -10 delivers as Delta hopes, it will be an even bigger fleet. The airline does, after all, have 30 options.
Perhaps this plus moving some A350s over will be enough to satisfy this early wave of Boeing retirements, but then there’s more. The 11 223-seat A330-200s and 21 282-seat A330-300s aren’t far behind. (There are ten A330-300s that have GE instead of Pratt engines and are much newer, but you have to assume those will be replaced in this same round.) So how do these get replaced?
If Delta exercises those -10 options, then that would go a long way, but it’s not enough. Could Delta think about ordering something smaller? Maybe the -9 has a place. Airbus doesn’t really have a good option, but already having the -10 in the fleet gives Delta more to work with. But on the other hand, Delta seems good with big airplanes, at least for now. Still there is now not going to be anything with less than 275 seats in Delta’s future long-haul fleet. Remember, it doesn’t even have A321LR/XLRs on order, so it’s big widebody or bust at this point.
I wouldn’t be shocked to see some -10s exercised as -9s down the line, but maybe it’s just a little too early to have those answers. As always, Delta will probably just wait for the next golden opportunity to acquire aircraft for cheap.
