Comair last month said it would ground 14 of its 50-seat Bombardier CRJs by the end of the year in step with a plan by parent company Delta Air Lines to cut its domestic capacity by 5 percent. The move will see the Cincinnati-based regional’s CRJ200 fleet shrink from 100 to 86 and its total complement of airplanes cut from 131 to 117. All told, Delta plans to slash flight hours among its Delta Connection affiliates by as much as 15 percent by early next year, a rate that translates into a total of 35 fifty-seat jets leaving the network within the next year or so.
Lease expirations will account for eight of the 14 CRJs marked for grounding at Comair and Delta will try to sell the remaining six. Comair has already dropped direct service to Baton Rouge from Cincinnati and cut frequencies to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Richmond by one flight each. Although Delta hasn’t released comprehensive plans for the rest of its Delta Connection partners, SkyWest Airlines, for one, has said it expects a 1- to 2-percent cut in system ASMs to result from a loss in business at Salt Lake City.
