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Delta Air Lines today introduced its first Airbus A220, putting an end to an unexpected road to becoming the launch type operator in North America.
Nearly three years after ordering the A220-100, formerly known as Bombardier CS100, and nearly a year late – plus an extra week late for the US federal closure – the Atlanta-based carrier commissioned the 109-seat aircraft between New York LaGuardia and Boston and Dallas / Fort Worth on February 7.
Delta
"Although we have overcome many challenges since … despite all the pricing and commercial and political challenges, we have never hesitated," Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian told FlightGlobal during the delivery. the airline's first A220 in October. "We knew this plane had to fly."
And fly the plane is. From only three aircraft in service today, Delta expects to have 28 A220s by the end of the year, on air routes from one ocean to the other . Crews are based in New York today, and a second base in Salt Lake City will be online in April or May.
Delta A220 routes until the end of the year (from February 7th)
FlightGlobal schedules
"This is one of the occasions when the plane makes a lot of sense," Cowen badyst Helane Becker said in an interview.
The A220 will allow Delta to add more regional jets to 76 seats to major aircraft. This initiative began with the introduction of the 110-seat Boeing 717-200 in 2013 and is expected to replace some of the 717s on the road.
The network benefits, however, are not the only opportunities with the A220. The Delta TechOps division of the airline is the exclusive provider of maintenance services for Pratt & Whitney's dual flow engines on both the A220 and the Airbus A321neo, the PW1500G and the PW1100G, and its Delta Flight Products division has plunged into the in-flight entertainment sector developing pbadenger displays on the A220's headquarters.
Hunter Keay, an badyst at Wolfe Research, says, "It's more exciting than just adding a new plane to the fleet.
BEYOND THE ECONOMY
Delta is expecting a double digit economic benefit with the A220. It anticipates a 20% reduction in fuel consumption, in addition to the dramatic increase in premium seat revenues, the new aircraft moving the 76-seat Bombardier CRJ900s on routes.
The 20% improvement in the economy is at the limit of what the other airlines claim for the A220. JetBlue Airways, which ordered 60 A220-300s in July 2018, indicates that fuel consumption is about 40% lower than that of its smaller Embraer 190, while the operator of the A220-100 launcher, Swiss, has stated that cost savings per seat were 25% higher. its BAE Avro RJ100 systems.
But as Keay points out, the other benefits that Delta derives from the plane are considerable.
P & W's engine deal is expected to boost Delta TechOps' sales by nearly a third to more than $ 1 billion a year in the coming years, said Bastian in May 2018. The MRO division then generated a turnover of approximately $ 750 million.
Investment in in-flight entertainment is more of a joker. Delta General Manager Gil West told investors in December that the airline was able to design, certify and build the A220 system at "a fraction of the cost we pay today" to external suppliers.
In addition, the system developed for the A220 is wireless and uses tablet screens, a weight reduction that could generate significant operating cost savings.
Other US carriers, including American Airlines and United Airlines, have chosen to eliminate integrated entertainment systems in the seats of narrow-body aircraft because of their cost and weight. They have adopted streaming options that require pbadengers to use a personal tablet or other device.
Delta plans to install the wireless entertainment system at its headquarters on its new Airbus A321neos and Airbus A330-900 aircraft, as well as the Boeing 767-400ER when they are installed later.
The carrier does not stop there though. According to West, Delta wants to sell the new in-flight entertainment system to Airbus and other airlines.
Delta Flight Products, manufacturer of the new entertainment systems, "aims to become a major player in in-flight entertainment and cabin upgrades," writes Seth Miller on Paxex.aero. "It is well financed and could disrupt the market considerably."
The question is whether Airbus and other airlines will buy the system, which, according to Miller, could cost Delta a lot if the carrier is not able to achieve economies of scale of production.
Delta, for its part, has already expressed confidence in the A220 where it counts – with its portfolio. The airline added 15 A220-300s to its backlog, bringing its total firm commitments to 90. It also converted 35 to 100 orders into larger units at the time.
CHALLENGES
The Delta journey since the order of the CS100 from then on in April 2016 to the introduction of the A220 today was bumpy. While initial concerns were about production delays for new used aircraft and problems with P & W GTF engines, a commercial dispute between Boeing and the Canadian aircraft manufacturer almost derailed the first flights until late in the 2020s .
Boeing, claiming damages from Delta's Bombardier Delta rebate for the CSeries, filed suit against the Canadian aircraft manufacturer at the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in April 2017. The Chicago-based company argued that Bombardier was essentially dumping devices on the US market, and hurting its own sales of 737 Max 7.
Although Delta disputed these claims, as the executives said they never seriously considered the 737-700 or the Max 7 as an alternative to the CS100, initial rulings were made against Bombardier. The US Department of Commerce proposed a tariff of nearly 220% on the aircraft in September 2017, a figure that is expected to rise to nearly 300% next month.
"We are going to take the planes, there may be a delay … but we do not expect to pay fares and we expect to catch the planes," Bastian said in October 2017.
As a result of this interim decision, Bombardier entered into an agreement with Airbus to sell the majority of the CSeries program to the European airline. This included the construction of a new final badembly line in Mobile, Alabama, which could bypbad the proposed rates.
However, to the surprise of many, the ITC found no injury to Boeing and rejected the proposed tariffs in its final decision of January 2018.
This allowed Delta to take delivery of its first A220 last October, officially an Airbus model after the Bombardier sale that was closed in July.
The A220 "will be an integral part of our future national fleet and will provide an experience that our customers look forward to with every flight," said New York Vice President and East Chuck Imhof Sales at the festivities. launch of LaGuardia today.
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