Delta Airlines announced on Wednesday it is upgrading its fleet servicing the Tel Aviv-New York route, planning to add 403 seats daily. The move, scheduled to begin in April 2010, involves changing over from a 747-400 to 767-300.
Esti Hershkowitz, a manager of Delta Israel is optimistic, explaining the airline is preparing for what it predicts will be a significant increase in travel during the 2010 summer season.
Delta has already declared it intentions, seeking to add four additional weekly flights to NYC, bringing the total to 18, but then pulled back due to the harsh economic realities over recent months. Last summer, Delta reduced the number of flights on its Tel Aviv – Atlanta route from 7 to 4. Hershkowitz explained the airline is not seeking to hide its intentions, to become a more dominant entity in the Tel Aviv – NYC route, confident the new planes which provide additional passenger and cargo space will help towards achieving this goal. That said, airline officials add it is no secret in the industry that the upcoming winter season is expected to be especially difficult.
A Delta spokesman added the new planes on the route mentioned is part of the airlines effort to increase service to 16 trans-Atlantic routes, confident travelers will avail themselves of the airline’s new scheduling and realities and upgraded fleet.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
10 Responses
ATTENTION Delta:
If you want more passengers on your NYC-TLV route, don’t charge an extra $50 for a second checked-in piece of luggage.
Upgrading from 747-400 to 767-300 is down grading
Is it not the other way around
#2 – ITZCHOK – It depends on your needs. The seat layout on a 767-300 is 2-3-2, while on a 747 its 3-4-3. -So, if you are a couple travelling together, you can get 2 seats together, one window seat and one aisle seat, and you don’t have to climb over a stranger to get to the bathroom, or have a stranger climb over you. For someone with that matzav, I would say its an upgrade. Of course if you are travelling with kids and you need 3 or 4 seats together, it might not be.
I don’t understand this, like #2. How is switching from 747 to 767 considered an ‘upgrade’ (except that the plane may be newer)? Isn’t the 767 smaller than the 747?
According to Wikipedia, the 747-400 can carry (depending on configuration) 416 or 524 passengers.
The 767-300 can carry 181, 224, 255 or 290 passengers.
Thus, even the highest passenger concentration on the 767-300 (economy class only) is still less than the minimal number of seats available on the 747-400.
don’t get excited. they’re probably adding all 403 seats to the same plane.
Helloooo… maybe the additional 400 seats mean they are adding 2 more FLIGHTS.
6, no they wouldnt! that would be elal!
currently the Delta flight to Israel is about an hour longer than the El-Al flight. Hopefully a bigger more powerful plane will make the flight quicker. We just returned from Succos in Israel and have been very pleased with the Delta service.
Keep it up.
ATTENTION: the article made an error. Delta is upgrading from use of a Boeing 767 to the Boeing 747 which has a larger capacity of passengers and maybe even a shorter flight time.
This is very important, because delta does not use Boeing 747 on many routes, so clearly Tel Aviv has been chosen as a preferred route.