Delta Will Start Flying 3 Former LATAM Airbus A350s This Summer

Delta Air Lines

IATA/ICAO Code

DL/DAL

Airline Type

Full Service Carrier

Hub(s)

Boston Logan International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, New York JFK Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

Year Founded

1929

Alliance

SkyTeam

CEO

Ed Bastian

Country

United States

This summer, Delta will incorporate three former LATAM Airbus A350-900s into its fleet and deploy them across several long-haul routes, including Atlanta-Santiago de Chile. Nonetheless, these jetliners will not have the classic Delta cabin and will be more densified than the remaining 24 A350-900s. Let’s investigate further.

Incoming aircraft

On Tuesday, a Delta Air Lines Airbus A350-900, registration N575DZ, operated a short test flight at Singapore’s Changi International Airport (SIN). According to data from FlightRadar24.com, the aircraft departed at 5:37 UTC and flew for about an hour before landing again at Changi.

This Delta A350-900 is currently being repainted in Singapore. It was previously operated by LATAM Airlines Group. It is expected this jetliner will soon travel from Singapore to the United States, where it will incorporate into Delta’s long-haul fleet and begin servicing this summer. It is one of the three former LATAM A350-900s Delta expects to incorporate in the following months.

Last year, LATAM surprised many when it decided to reject the leasing contracts of its Airbus A350 fleet. The South American company had 13 A350s, which flew for the Brazilian LATAM branch. Shortly after, Delta acquired nine of the rejected units.

Delta acquired several Airbus A350-900s that formerly flew with LATAM Airlines Group and Qatar Airways. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.

Seating configuration

If you have traveled onboard Delta’s Airbus A350 fleet, you know these jetliners have a capacity for 306 passengers, distributed in 32 Delta One seats, 48 Delta Premium seats, and 226 economy seats.

Nonetheless, Delta’s incoming A350s will have more seats, 339 to be exact. The configuration consists of 30 premium business seats (advertised on Delta’s website as Delta One), 63 premium economy (Delta Comfort+), and 246 main cabin seats.

Simple Flying reached Delta for comment on this topic, and the airline said,

“This summer, Delta will incorporate the first three of nine pre-owned Airbus A350 aircraft into our global network. The aircraft feature a temporary seating configuration pending further modification to one consistent with the A350 aircraft currently in our fleet. The integration of these aircraft into our fleet will allow for an important increase to our flying capacity to help get our customers where they want to go this summer and beyond.”

Among the most important changes between Delta’s traditional A350 cabin and the new LATAM-Delta A350 cabin is the lack of Delta One Suites. Instead, Delta will offer on these aircraft the 2-2-2 LATAM business class.

This is a view of the product Delta will offer onboard its newest Airbus A350-900s. Photo: Delta.

The remaining six A350-900s could tentatively enter service between the second and third quarters of next year.

Delta has already scheduled to operate its new 339-seats A350-900s next month. According to Cirium, the airline will deploy this A350 subfleet in flights between Atlanta and Santiago de Chile.

Delta currently has 25 Airbus A350-900s. Photo: Airbus.

The long road of these airplanes

Delta will shortly receive three Airbus A350-900s registrations N574DZ, N575DZ, and N576DZ. As stated before, these jetliners first flew with LATAM Airlines in South America, but they even had a prior operator, Qatar Airways.

These three long-haul aircraft were among the four subleased A350s Qatar received from LATAM between 2017 and 2020.

When Qatar Airways experienced delays in deliveries of its order for the widebody aircraft, it decided to lease four A350s from LATAM in February 2017. They were even painted in a LATAM/Qatar hybrid livery.

In 2020, Qatar rejected the leases and returned them to LATAM following the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not shortly after, LATAM decided to get rid of its Airbus A350 fleet.

Last year, Jerome Cadier, LATAM Brazil’s CEO, said,

Among these decisions, one is the restructuration of our widebody fleet in Brazil. Therefore, today we announce that seven aircraft A350 are leaving our LATAM Brazil fleet immediately; next week, another four will go as well. With that, starting this month, LATAM’s widebody fleet will be composed of B777/B767 and B787.”

Recently, LATAM Chile sent a few Boeing 787 Dreamliners to LATAM Brazil and registered them with Brazilian registrations.

What do you think about Delta Air Lines’ incoming Airbus A350-900 fleet? Would you want to travel onboard these jetliners? Let us know in the comments below.

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