You need to look at the comments on the story itself. According to them, this is kinda old news in that China Southern's 16 are already in the DAL fleet, as are SOME of the others but at any rate, DAL appears to be cornering the market on the relatively new MD90's and of course the 717's. With their in house mx, they are miles ahead as far as fuel and cost goes. It will all be interesting.lol
If Delta uses these aircraft to replace their fleet of small CRJ's, this will be great. Tired of sharing my seat with the obese flyer sitting next to me.
I remember when Delta got their first MD90. I was flying out of the DFW base and that was the only base that had them. Also, at that time, while the DFW crews could fly the MD88 or MD90, no other bases pilots could fly the MD90. I enjoyed flying the 90 as we flew to both coasts, had no noise abatement restrictions at DCA or SNA, or any were else for the matter. I tried to bid MD90 trips for another reason....we NEVER flew into ATL! YES....!
It was a GREAT airplane...had the powered elevator and a LOT of thrust!
I retired in July 2003 and my last flight was an MD90 from LAX to DFW!
A couple of years later they closed the DFW base and I think the MD90 went to SLC, and eventually all pilots in the MD88 could fly them.
I hate it when airlines buy planes from each other because you don't know what's wrong whit the plane!! yeah sure, you,re gonna inspect it but there is always something you missed or didn't see. but i do not fly whit delta so it's no prob.
This only reaffirms my criteria that USAF and DoD for that matter gave in to the political muscle and pressure exerted by Boeing and the numerous lawmakers from the states where they have manufacturing facilities to buy brand new 767s (aka KC-46s) at over $ 230 million a copy with the burned out and inconsistent argument that old planes can not be maintained because the costs of spares is sky high and other BS in spite that reality says something else: B-52s and C-135s and KC-135s which are 50 years old still provide excellent service. The Air Force could have fulfilled at least half of the total planned acquisition of the renewed tanker fleet with second hand 767s from airlines with good maintenance reputation and have a fully refurbished and Zero hour KC-46 for less than $ 70 million. Aviation Week and Space Technology reported that this is what cost the Colombian Air Force to acquire one fully refurbished and zero-houred KC-767 capable to handle both drogue and boom refueling 5 fighters simultaneously if needed, and that who did all the work in less than a year was the Israel Aircraft Industry (IAI). What Northwest did so well for years has now permeated to Delta (refurbishing old planes and keeping them well maintained costs far less -considering fixed costs and fuel costs- than shop for brand new airframes every 15 years).
And then after the gov't got involved and Boeing did get the contract, they screwed Wichita royally as far as the production went. Plenty of blame to go around there, not near enough strings. There are a lot of good mod centers around the country that are plenty capable to 0 time a 767 and would have been proud to have the work. My guess is, had it been put out that way, Boeing would have jumped at it themselves.
Please excuse the ignorance, but what exactly is meant by zero hour refurbishment? There was a time-lapse post of a BA 474 taken apart and rebuilt. Is that what is meant by the term?
Basically it is what you say but a bit more complex and I would attempt to describe some of the tasks. Planes are complete stripped down to the bare structures and skins, engineers crawl all over looking for corrosion and if necessary will replace affected parts. Ditto to the miles and miles of cabling and wiring, radio and navigation equipment, of course the jet engines are totally rebuilt. Seating and interior is usually completely replaced and new coat of shiny paint is applied and 3-4 months and a few millions later they fly out newer than new hence the Zero-hour expression.
The headline above is wrong, by the way, as they're not all from China Southern. 16 are. The rest are former China Eastern, Hello, SAS and Japan Air System via Japan Airlines.
