Delta Air Lines announced that it would keep Pinnacle Airlines as a Delta Connection carrier until the contract expires in 2017. This comes as a surprise since Delta announced that it had planned to end all routes through Pinnacle. Shares of Pinnacle rose 38%, yet the airline is still down nearly 75% from last year’s stock price.
I’m happy to see this. I think Delta was getting rid of too many of it’s Delta Connection carriers, i.e. ExpressJet and Pinnacle, and decided to keep Pinnacle. Also note that Northwest Airlines has exercised their right to remove 17 CRJs from Pinnacle’s fleet and over to Mesaba. Note that this is only because Pinnacle could not reach a new pilot contract, which was a deadline promised by Pinnacle to Northwest. Northwest is allowed to remove up to 2 CRJs a month. So, it has been a rough year for the airline.
It looks as though Delta is out of LAX for good, since the company pulled ExpressJet and has not announced any intentions of keeping the airline. Also note that Delta has strong competition in Los Angeles, like United, Southwest and American.
Delta also held it’s conference call in regards to the Second Quarter. There, Delta reported about it’s status versus it’s Atlanta hub competitor AirTran Airways. Dan Webb posted an article about the topic. You can also read about Delta’s second quarter earnings and American’s second quarter earnings here.
I’m curious to see what other airlines do with their regional carriers. It’s no doubt that regional carriers are hurting too, due to the expense of crude oil. I also think that we’ll see regional carriers die out soon, but only time and the price of oil will tell.
Image: flickr.com
