It’s no secret that Delta Air Lines has a history of buying used aircraft. And in continuing that tradition, the Atlanta-based carrier purchased about 30, erm, “previously loved” 737-900ERs from the Lion Air group.
The second-hand planes’ seating charts are now live on Delta’s website. These aircraft leave a little to be desired. For example, just 12 First Class seats and one row of Comfort+. And one of the models apparently features no amenities.
Delta’s 73J: Not Upgrade Friendly?
Delta’s 739 (which many of us are familiar with) consists of:
- 20 First Class seats
- 21 Comfort+ seats
- 139 Main Cabin seats
But the 73J sacrifices a bunch of premium seats and loads up Main Cabin. That plane’s configuration is:
- 12 First Class seats
- 6 Comfort+ seats
- 162 Main Cabin seats
Don’t expect a lot of complimentary upgrades on this plane, kids. (Although, you seem to have a better chance of getting upgraded to First Class than you do Comfort+!)
Here’s what’s nice about the 73J: its 21″ wide First Class seats feature 45″ of pitch. That’s eight more inches than Delta’s standard 739.
The bad part is, there are only 12 First Class seats. Because that’s eight fewer than the 739 and there’s all sorts of legroom, that’s why I jokingly refer to them as the Spirit’s “Big Front Seats.”
Finally, we have the 73R:
- 12 First Class seats
- 24 Comfort+ seats
- 137 Main Cabin seats
I’m not sure what’s going with seat 29F. Is that maybe a jumpseat for a flight attendant? Also, note its three exit rows: two along the wings and one in the back quarter of the aircraft.
We made a little composite below (click for a larger image).
You can look at the seat maps at Delta.com.
73R: “R” Stands for “Roughing It”
The Delta 73R passenger cabin seems less advanced than that of most Southwest planes.
You read that correctly.
According to Delta’s seat map of the 73R, the aircraft does not feature WiFi. (Most of Southwest’s 737s do.) Nor does it have electrical outlets or USB ports.
I bet you already know the answer to “Does it have seatback televisions?”
Moral of the story: bring your portable battery chargers and download some shows to watch on your mobile devices when flying on the 73R.
The 73J’s feature USB outlets and seatback televisions in coach. In addition to the extra legroom in First Class, those passengers also have electrical outlets.
Where Will the New Old 737-900ERs Fly?
Hopefully short routes. Like, Fargo to Minneapolis. Las Vegas to Los Angeles. You know, the ones without cabin service.
My research indicated that an Atlanta (ATL) to Panama City, Florida (ECP) hop will be operated on a 73J starting on Wednesday, November 9. (Delta flight #1193.)
UPDATE: A Statement from Delta
Delta reached out to us and provided this statement about the 737-900s:
As these pre-owned aircraft await modification to match our existing 737-900 fleet, customers on limited short-haul domestic routes will experience a temporary seating configuration and may not have access to seatback entertainment or in-flight Wi-Fi.
The integration of these aircraft will provide an increase to our flying capacity, helping get our customers where they want to go this winter and beyond. We apologize for any inconveniences this presents in the interim.
A Delta representative echoed something similar to what commenter Jerry noted, and said, “These aircraft will be limited to flights under 450 miles out of Atlanta (approximately one-hour flights).
Final Approach
Delta Air Lines acquired about 30 737-900ERs from the Lion Air group. The refurbishments sure are interesting. One of the planes features a bunch of Main Cabin seats and not many premium seats. Another apparently has no onboard features such as power or inflight entertainment. But according to Delta, these are short-term issues in effect while the aircraft are converted to match the current Delta 737-900ERs most of us know.
What do you make of these aircraft? Please share your thoughts in the below Comments section.
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UNITED rising
More vapor ware from Delta
Separately who remembers the ex SQ 757s with the footrests and extra first legroom – those were actually welcome substitutions
Rising with so much further to go
As a DM flying out of MEM, this is bad news particularly MEM -ATL. Already getting in FC is problematic, but at least C+ is automatic. If we get this version on that route it will be couch for a lot of DM. Could be the final straw for me.
However, they are far better than the CRJ 200s which are typically used on the short hops like Atlanta to Panama City, Florida and Atlanta to Mobile.
Calm down. These planes are being routed to sub 900-mile runs from ATL. Widely communicated through DL FOPS & TOPS & network.
Agree. IF this is the use case, these planes are better than CRJ or E175.
If its for longer flights, no thanks!
I remember when Delta was marketing consistency in service, cabins, offerings across the fleet… Until the aircraft version of a CarMax has a bunch they can get cheap, I guess?
You have a typo indicating that the 73J “does not feature … electrical outlets or USB ports”. Then a couple paragraphs down you state “The 73J’s feature USB outlets and seatback televisions in coach.” This is clearly contradictory, so I presume it is a typo.
In the positive aspect, you neglect to mention that the pitch in coach is 1″ more than Delta’s 739. Since I loathe the 739 and won’t even fly on it if I can only get a coach seat (except for extremely short flights, under 350 miles), the extra 1″ actually might make that kind of flying slightly more palatable.
Thanks for catching that.
Long time DM and understand, but wonder if these J’s and R’s are short term. Do you figure they are planned to be made compatible or this is a 5 year+ run for J’s and R’s. Less than 900 miles from ATL is a very long distance with a lot of locations – DFW, HOU, PHL, PIT, DET, MIA, MCO, ORD … all under 900 miles, I think.
Hope we do not see it JAX – ATL-JAX
Does anyone have an idea of how many will be in the “J” configuration and how many in the “R” arrangement?
As heavily as Comfort+ is marketed, hard for me to fathom why they would only do a one row Comfort+ section on the 73J. And, having three different 737-900 configurations seems to really complicate things when equipment swaps have to happen for mechanical reasons. I just can’t see this lasting.
Hey, on CSG-ATL these would be a giant upgrade 🙂
I was DM for Delta for 4-5 years prior to entering into rewirement. With each travel blog or article I read regarding airline travel; watered down FF benefits, infrequency of upgrades, deplorable passenger behavior – including physical assault and sustained periods of system malfunctions regarding labor, scheduling & flight cancellations.
I’m so grateful that I stopped spinning my wheels when I did. Flying appears nothing short of miserable nowadays.
Don’t freak out people. This pseudo problem will be remedied. Such a first world problem. Get over the slight possibility that you will be forced to fly in one.
I don’t really care whether it has a TV – in fact I would be happy if it didn’t unless it could work as a second screen for my laptop! I would care about the lack of Wifi though it I were on this flight. I realize that we all managed without wifi not so long ago, but then we also managed without computers and cellphones, times change.
They’ll be converted to the standard Delta configuration geez. This piece and the responses are the stuff of drama queens.
I’ll have you know that I’m a drama king.
Chris, great read. All of Southwest’s aircraft are equipped with WiFi (hence their SATCOM antenna “humps” on their fuselages). Whether it works is another story, but they seem to be trying to add some nice improvements to the passenger experience with their new WiFi providers, in-seat power, and newer MAX cabins that should be arriving next year.
Has there been any information on whether these planes will be retrofitted later for more consistency? Fly out of Atlanta quite often myself and likely may see some of these.
Thanks for the clarification on the WN planes.
Yes, the 739s will all eventually be consistent (see the statement from Delta).
On the row 29 question on the 73R configuration…
There is actually a set of mid-cabin exit doors there (exit only… kind of like the push out/drop away exits on some of the ex-NW B757 behind the wing and on 767-400). It is needed to increase the exit count to enable higher/denser capacity seating like Lion Air has of 200+. All 737-900 are built with this ability but like DL/UA/AS don’t use so they are plugged. You can see the outline from the outside.
Not sure how to embed an image but here’s an example view I could find:
And you are correct: at 29F there is a flight attendant jumpseat.
Will they be used on the DTW – SCE run??
Reminds me of the old 757s that Delta used intra-Asia. Those were the best 757s in the fleet. Massive legroom, etc. Sure, they were old but they were way better than the domestic 757s. Then Delta eliminated intra-Asia and reconfigured them. I’m a big Boeing guy but I will take the A321 in first any day over the 757.
If they are going to be used on hour-long runs, just think of them as massive CR7 replacements. It sounds like they will steadily get converted to “regular” 739s, although I’m not sure what they’d do with the version with the extra exit doors.
I’m sure they’ll end up mostly in Atlanta, which is where Delta sends most of its less desirable aircraft since it’s a fortress hub. ie. we have all of the 717’s but none of the A-220’s.
Any more 737’s do the Delta fleet is just bad news period. I’ve been doing a lot of flights in MC/EC in 737’s and A321’s lately and the difference in shoulder space (AB is 1″ wider per seat) is marked. 3 grown men simply don’t fit in 17″ wide seats.
Anything known about any of the C+ seats in row 10 on the 73R configuration?
Spoke to delta and they state that 10F still has under seat storage, but looking at that map, it certainly doesn’t look like it, looks like a bulkhead wall in the chart on Deltas website, or the very least looks like there’s only spots for two of those seats to have anything underneath the FC seats in front.
There is room for 3 under seat storage. However 1 is smaller than the other 2. Lots of leg room on my flight fully stretcher out my legs. If this configuration stays row 10 on the 73R will be a hot seller.
I love these plans. As I DM I usually get upgraded to FC 90% of the time and the extra room in FC is awesome. I hope they don’t reconfigure them.
Rand
I just booked a ticket from San Jose, CA to Greensboro, NC and applied upgrade certificates. Everything cleared except Greensboro to Atlanta on a 73J. On the plus side, Delta shows that the seat pitch is 31-32in on the 73J and 73R, and 30-31in on the 739, so that’s a small positive.
I do wonder if anyone has any comments about the exit rows on these planes. 21A and 21F are great on the 739 because there is no seat directly in front of you, but it appears that the 73J have not have the same configuration. With the extra inch for most MC seats, I am not sure it’s worth moving to an exit row for a 1 hour flight.
I don’t care if it’s a 5-minute flight — give me that exit row!
I moved it to 20F.
The exit rows are 20 and 21. The odd thing that when changing the seat on the web, row 21 is shown as having limited recline, but row 20 is shown as having full recline. That can’t be right. On the mobile app I see nothing about these seats having limited recline.
I did see this post from a few months ago on another site:
“I’ve seen them (73Js) frequently between ATL-ECP over the last few months. And also, about 50% of the time they seem to get swapped out within a few days of departure for a “regular 737-900ER” or a standard 737-800 causing last minute seat assignment changes. Have one for next week that I just had to adjust my seat on due to a change to a 738.”
I guess I will need to keep an eye on the seat assignment.