No. 3 carrier could trim flights, use more regional jets 01/09/2003 By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News Delta Air Lines Inc. will announce significant changes to its hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, possibly as soon as Thursday, a travel industry consultant said. By spring, the hub will get smaller, and Delta will substitute small regional jets for many of the large planes it uses now. The nation's No. 3 carrier will trim flights on unprofitable routes and possibly cut nonstop service to some cities from D/FW, said the consultant, who did not want to be quoted by name but who was familiar with the plan. A Delta spokesman declined to comment on whether any announcements were imminent but said the carrier has been making changes to its D/FW schedule for some time. "Delta will continue to right-size operations in order to make them profitable," spokesman Anthony L. Black said. Delta serves 67 cities from D/FW, averaging 234 daily departures. Of those flights, 148 use regional jets flown by Delta's partners such as Atlantic Southeast and Comair and 86 are flown by Delta using jets such as MD88s and Boeing 737s. The Atlanta-based carrier employs 4,820 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and it's unclear if any of those jobs would be affected by a smaller schedule. The D/FW downsizing would reverse Delta's local growth strategy and would benefit Fort Worth-based American Airlines Inc. Delta has been slowly adding regional jet flights at D/FW since 2000, when its departures totaled 124. Although the number of flights may not differ much under Delta's changes, the use of smaller planes will effectively shrink Delta's presence here, giving up market share to American and others. Delta carries 20 percent of D/FW passengers, and American flies 68 percent, according to November data from the airport. Delta also flies regional jets from Dallas Love Field to Atlanta. As the airline industry has struggled in the last two years, network carriers have turned to regional jets to help them cut costs. The planes - which have 50 to 70 seats, compared with 120 and up on standard jets - are cheaper to operate because the crews aren't paid as much as those who fly big planes. Not all analysts are sold on the idea of substituting regional jets on routes typically flown by big planes. Such a strategy reduces revenue because the regional jets have far fewer seats, and passengers aren't crazy about the small planes, even though they like them better than turboprop-driven planes. "These are fine planes, but there's a limit to what they can do," said industry consultant Michael Boyd of Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colo. He said the regional jets aren't comfortable for passengers traveling long distances and lack the legroom and overhead luggage space of larger planes. "There are ergonomic problems with them - these consultants [advising airlines] aren't actually flying in these planes," he said. United Airlines is reportedly weighing widespread use of regional jets to help revive its fortunes as it tries to emerge from bankruptcy. Delta is in much better financial shape than United but remains in fierce competition with low-cost competitors and lost $900 million through the first three quarters of 2002. Delta is developing a yet-to-be-named low-fare carrier that will compete primarily on the East Coast using Boeing 757 airplanes. That offshoot will fly high-traffic routes from the East Coast to Florida, for example, in competition with AirTran Airways and Dallas-based Southwest Airlines. If Delta shifts many of its 757s - it has 121 of them - to the new low-fare carrier, it may need to pull other big planes from places such as D/FW to fill route gaps on the East Coast. Delta also has hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati and Salt Lake City. Delta had continued its D/FW expansion through its winter schedule, which added three daily flights. The D/FW reductions would be part of Delta's effort to cut hundreds of millions in annual costs and eliminate 8,000 jobs.