DL Retiring its 777 Fleet
 

I'm sure that many people reading this know who DL is, and what company Ed Bastian works for. For what it's worth, I'm not one of those people....

Delta ....

Retiring 18 777's.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7d01df584.jpeg

Interesting, they keep the 767s with are on average over 22 years old and get rid of the 777 which are only 15 years old. .But of course the number of aircraft are not the same ...

I always feel apologetic about using those secret airline codes like SQ, CX, QF and BR here on the so-called Professional Pilots Rumour Network. It's an airline thing I suppose. Most non-Americans wouldn't be familiar with BK (but I think some of them are about to find out what it means :().

A scheduler thought that BR was based in London when she built an ad hoc deadhead back to base for me after a mechanical in Asia years ago. ;)

The crews on B767 (77 units) are less costly than those on B777 (18 units).

B763 (56) $296hr
B764 (21) $334hr
B777 (18) $354hr

Today isn't a good day for Delta. This announcement is actually the "good" news. According to this

https://news.delta.com/deltas-777-ai...-amid-covid-19

My bold. If the 777 is that much less efficient than the A350, how is Boeing still selling them? What am I missing here?

One needs to consider ownership costs (maintenance etc.) balanced against re-sale values per aircraft model.

I got a car I would like to sell you cheap so I can afford my new car with no real maintenance costs, yet, and it also gets 20% better mileages.

Act now! don't let it go, fully guaranteed until next scheduled maintenance (which is next month) and requires removal of the engine for an update

Well in all fairness, until 1987 BR was the code for British Caledonian...

Didn't know that, thanks. She would sometimes ask me questions like 'What's the Zulu time over there in Narita?'

That's why the 777X is in flight test. The original 777 is 25 years old technology and two decades older than the A350.

Because Boeing is not selling these versions of the 777 any more. Some are 20-year old 777-200s, and the ones 12 years old are the 777-200LR, long range version, a poor seller whose only advantage was on flights longer than Delta has in their network, and otherwise have higher seat mile costs. The 20-year old ones are likely coming up to an expensive D-check at some stage.

Delta has projected lower passenger volume for a long time after the pandemic is over. Emirates has even stated the days of the A380 have been shattered, so it makes economic sense to get rid of the larger platforms. The 767 fits in with an A350 - A330 - B767 size structure by passenger volume per plane if Delta's projections say they can no longer fill a 777. I'm not current on Delta's plan for retiring the 767. I remember them stating they would be interested in being a launch customer of a Boeing NMA, but that was a few years ago and their current plan appears to get rid of anything without a side stick. Will they become an A321-XLR customer using that to fill the gap when they eliminate the 767 and 737-900ERs?

The 777s could be easy to sell for freighter conversions.

In a related development, emphasis mine.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN22Q2B4

Thanks to the guys who explained the higher 777 cost

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....234104435a.jpg

Second prototype taking off. Photo is courtesy of Boeing.

Best Boeing hurry and get that puppy made....a lot of airlines with "expensive" 777s out there, including mine.

Airbubba...
Don't feel apologetic about using the ICAO or IATA codes, after all this is a "Professional Pilots Rumour Network".

777s are a hauler..especially the 300’s. All the pax all the freight all the fuel. (Almost :ok:) License to print money if you can fill them up (which is the current problem)

I heard someone say they had the best underfloor cargo capability in class.

777 SLF-ing to Texas with BA, our captain explained that someone had stuffed a wooden crate in the hold and they were waiting to see if the wiring had be affected.

It had.

Very true, I'd almost put money on the fact they already are sold or maybe have some deal pending.

The power plants look almost as big as the fuselage! Damn...

The engines are WIDER than a 737/757 fuselage!

Boeing in conjunction with Israeli Aerospace is developing a 777-300ER Freighter Conversion (777-300ERSF). But it's not scheduled to fly until the end of this year and certify in 2022.
Given the current environment, they may want to work to accelerate that schedule...

Is there an engine pix somewhere with six seats across and a trolly in the aisle

Yes, some codes are better known than others. Yes, I could look up DL, to find Delta. I've flown as a Delta passenger many times, I just don't have their code memorized, and would be more happy to see the full name in the title of a thread. And, about secret airline codes, I worked for WB here in Canada (not Rwanda) decades back: Three 707's, then four DC-8-63's, and two L1011's. The Air Canada ramp guys would tell me that "WB" stood for "Water Buffalo", but that wasn't it!

That airline was forced to end its service due to changes in the economy, so I can empathize with the airline's challenges these days....

I'd say that that most pax outside the U.S. are familiar with those codes in my experience. It's probably an international thing that folks who fly domestically in the U.S. don't see much. Once again, apologies for the technical pilot stuff on PPRuNe.

For example:

NRT (Narita, Japan - Near Tokyo)

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6c8e897f17.jpg

LHR (London, England)

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fe05e07d92.jpg

CDG (Paris, France)

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....50ea779931.jpg

Almost. On our longest flight they pumped the gas until the plane wouldn't take anymore. Typically 312-315,000 lbs vs the 320,000 lbs advertised. Fuel was slightly warmer than 15C/59F. Sometimes we'd be capped at approx. 40-60 less passengers than full. Carry that much weight for 16 hrs wouldn't leave enough reserve fuel on arrival. We'd laugh if the takeoff weight was undr 760,000 lbs - "we're light. This baby is going to stand on it's tail and rocket out of here!" Needless to say reality was that we didn't rocket out of town on departure at that weight. Another saying "there is no 'pull the nose up to make a crossing restriction.' The more you pull the nose up the farther you'll miss the restriction by."

And Google is your friend

I am writing under correction, but did Delta not make an extensive investment in refurbishing their 767 fleet’s interiors? Apart from the large fleet of 767 which they operate, that may also play a role?

Delta has become Airbus Industries favorite customer and at this time I would bet Airbus gave Delta a sweet deal along with government sponsored savings based on the quantity of aircraft Delta has committed to. Knowing that Delta and the industry has excess capacity, for now, Delta probably did not want to eliminate one of the most popular and capable aircraft in their fleet but had no choice based on the numbers and the goal to maintain a newer fleet. This situation will test every airline management to make very tough and unpopular decisions. Next will be furloughs and pay cuts. There will be a lot of pain and disillusions as the various airlines, and travel industry, employees unwind their budgets to this reality. One moment there was unlimited prosperity and the next moment there was unemployment, not what all those new pilots and Flight Crew ever expected. Contract negotiations are going to be pretty rough.

It always seemed the two small 777 sub-fleets at Delta were a bit out on a limb in their overall set of aircraft, so it's no real surprise they look to remove them. A number of 777-200s from the era of their first half of the fleet had already been scrapped by other carriers.

Sure. And there are professional pilots on this forum who have nothing whatever to do with airline operations (anymore), other than to ride as a passenger from time to time. It's fair enough to use codes in the discussion when most people understand the context. Using a code in the opening title of the thread will send some people to Google, where simply writing the three extra letters would have let everyone understand from the beginning without distracting the effort with a google search.

For those times I fly as a crew member (knowing that most of my professional piloting is solo), the pre takeoff briefing will include: "Is that understood?" meaning that the pilot preforming the briefing would like to assure understanding with the crew. I hope that professional effort toward effective communication can extend to posts, or at least the titles....

What Boeing is still selling are the 777-300ERs, much more efficient on a CASM basis than the 777-200ERs and 777-200LRs that Delta has.

The aircraft everyone loves for mixed cargo/pax ops is the 777-300ER - not the small predecessor 777-200s (ER/LR). Those are being replaced by either the 787 or the A350,

Of course, you have to have the cargo and pax volume. One of those is currently missing...

I guess Bastian used the term 'iconic' for the 777 to big up the crews. I have nerv thought of it as 'iconic'. It was just a very good, very big, twin. What i liked about it was that it was built 'old style' and any prangs it has been in show that it holds up very well.

Looks like the Delta entry on the Alpa.org website is a few weeks out of date:

https://www.alpa.org/en/about-alpa/o...t-groups/delta

Yeah in response to the person who said get them converted to freighter, there is no such conversion at this time and if there was there’d be bookings until 2030 right now..and the Israeli conversion is only for the 300 as far as I understand. My airline tried to give our 200s back to the lessor but they didn’t want that in the current climate. The ones we own outright we enquired about mothballing in the usual boneyards, and they said join the back of the queue..no one wants them for parts and the boneyards will only take them if you pay exorbitant parking charges as they have more than they need.