Delta Airlines has announced that it will stop flying popular routes between Washington D.C’s National Airports and New York’s La Guardia Airport in fuel squandering MD-88 aircraft. Delta will begin transitioning those flights to Regional Jets flown by Republic Airlines’ subsidiary Shuttle America. The transition to ERJ-175s will begin on January 5th of 2009, and is scheduled to be completed by March 28th.
The move signals the new trend for Major Airlines to transition flying away from larger inefficient aircraft to more fuel efficient Regional Jets. Replacing the larger capacity airplanes with jets of a smaller capacity requires more flights to move the same amount of passengers, which translates into a need for more pilots to fly them.
