MINNEAPOLIS — Combined, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines would have a 1,000-plus-aircraft fleet with which executives could deliver on the promise of a single U.S. carrier capable of connecting the world.
But those 1,097 aircraft could also be a mammoth headache to manage.
Between them, Delta and Northwest fly more than a dozen models of airplanes, with only the Boeing 757 and the regional jet CRJ-200 in common. The aircraft potpourri — Airbuses, Boeings, old McDonnell-Douglases and new Embraers — runs counter to the streamlined fleet many experts contend is necessary to keep maintenance issues to a minimum and to keep the greatest number of planes in the air instead of the hangar.
“The fleets don’t fit together well at all,” said Ernie Arvai, an aviation consultant with the Arvai Group. “There is real ly no synergy. It’s incompatibility multiplied.”
Each make of aircraft requires its own air-crew training, spare parts, maintenance training and manuals. Minneapolis Star-Tribune
