When Delta and Northwest merged, the airline became the owner of three regional carriers (Comair, Compass, and Mesaba), and has contracts with a few more. Delta started moving things around in the past – some Mesaba 340s have been moved to Atlanta, for example, but it appears that Delta has been doing some more tinkering lately. A friend of mine noticed that there were some CRJ-700s flying PVD-DTW later this year, for example:
That route has been a mix of Northwest mainline and regionals in the past, but in November, there will be two Comair CRJ-700s flying the route, but I’m not complaining as those flights provide an upgrade from 2 DC-9 and 1 CR9 flight last year.
When I checked the PVD-ATL schedule, I noticed that the first CR9 flight will be flown by Pinnacle, which is a Northwest regional carrier.
Delta’s number of fleet types grew a great deal thanks to the merger, but it has opened up some opportunities, it seems. Delta can use Northwest’s Saabs that seat less than the smallest CRJ. The Northwest network, meanwhile, now has access to many more 70-seat regional jets that can be a better fit for its routes.
The 5th DTW flight that gets added with the 11/1/09 schedule change (6:30pm PVD deprture) represents that first time since Spirit was here that we’ve had 5 NW DTW flights.