Delta To Keep Pinnacle Flying

(MoneyWatch)  It was only last month that Delta threatened to drop Pinnacle and its 16 CRJ-900 aircraft due to poor performance. Now, the two airlines have agreed to a truce. What changed?

Well, the press release doesn't tell us much about it except for one important tidbit. "As part of the resolution between the parties, the in-service dates of the remaining seven aircraft will be deferred until between January and May 2009."

So with a deferral of less than a year, Delta decided it was ok with the contract now? Kind of strange. Then again, if the Northwest merger goes through, they'll have a lot more Pinnacle aircraft flying around since that's one of the main Northwest regionals.

By the way, remember how Delta said it was performance problems that hurt Pinnacle? Take a look at May. While Pinnacle did end up with the second best on-time performance (PDF) in the nation behind Hawaiian, it wasn't particularly good in Atlanta. The airline was on time 77.1% of the time. Sounds good until you hear that Delta mainline was 86.7% on time and regional ASA did very well too (84.1%). Comair wasn't as lucky with a 73.1% record.

This strikes me as odd. Pinnacle obviously ran a very impressive on-time operation systemwide, but not in Atlanta. Is this just a fluke or is it as Pinnacle claimed? Is Delta the one responsible for Pinnacle's delays? I suppose none of this matters anymore. This appears to be resolved for now. I'd just be worried if I were another regional flying for Delta. They could be next.