Delta Air Lines To Launch A New, Premium Airbus A350 On Routes Into South Africa

 

The airline will now offer three distinct A350 layouts, one for each target market.

With its flagship Airbus A350-900s, Delta will now offer three layout options. In contrast to its typical 306-seat arrangement, it is unclear how many of the 283-tonne aircraft in its third configuration—which will have 275 seats—will be delivered.

Delta's three A350 setups

The following table illustrates how each layout differs according to class. The primary distinction is that there are eight more Delta One suites than the typical 306 seats (+25%), which is made up for by fewer Premium Select seats. There will be 31 fewer economy seats in the Main Cabin.

Delta One suites will make up nearly 15% of the new configuration, with 10% going towards the standard and 9% going towards the high-capacity, high-economy ex-LATAM version. Just 9% of the seats on ex-LATAM aircraft fall into those categories when Premium Select is taken into account; for the other categories, the percentage rises to nearly 25%.

But why?

The new, lower-capacity version will be introduced on Delta's routes to South Africa first, as will be explained later. Johannesburg is known for being hot and humid, and it's common knowledge that the carrier has payload restrictions on its flights back to the US, which obviously lowers commercial performance.

The 275-seaters would aid with takeoff performance because they would be lighter and use less fuel due to their 10% fewer seats. If filled, more premium seats would contribute to higher yields by offsetting fewer passengers.

However, more might occur. Along with weight savings from fewer seats and an apparent greater fuel capacity, the 283-tonne version's higher MTOW could lead to the realization of more extremely long routes. We'll have to wait and see.

For now, two routes

According to Delta's schedule that it submitted to Cirium, its December 18th plan is as follows:

Atlanta-Johannesburg: starting on June 1st, 2024, a daily 275-seater

Atlanta-Cape Town: starting on August 1, 2024, a three-weekly, 275-seater

Because there isn't a landing performance issue, all of Delta's flights from Atlanta to Johannesburg are currently nonstop to South Africa.

Four flights stop in Cape Town en route back to Atlanta, which is not helped by the length of the flight and the summer heat in the Southern Hemisphere country.

Remarkably, there are three nonstop departures from Johannesburg to Atlanta. If a flight is full enough, they need to have a heavy payload restriction. It will help a little that they leave at 22:50 when it is cooler.

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