Endeavor Air (9E, Minneapolis St. Paul International), the Minnesota-based capacity provider that operates exclusively for parent firm Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson), has confirmed it will assume thirty-one Bombardier Aerospace regional jets from ExpressJet Airlines (Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) as the Georgia-based capacity provider winds down its relationship with Delta through 2018.
As part of the early end of their partnership announced last week, ExpressJet said it would be returning twenty-eight CRJ900s and several other aircraft to Delta with effect from the last quarter of this year. Under their current agreement, which was to have expired in 2019, ExpressJet currently operates twenty-eight CRJ-900s and thirty-three CRJ700s under the Delta Connection banner.
Endeavour Air has since confirmed that it will be absorbing thirty-one of the ExpressJet-operated aircraft - all twenty-eight CRJ-900s and three CRJ-700s - by July 2018.
In light of the added capacity, Endeavour Air will draw down its fleet of CRJ200s by sixteen aircraft, to forty-two, for a total net gain of fifteen aircraft once all have been inducted into its overall fleet.
As a consequence, Endeavor plans to close its Minneapolis St. Paul International CRJ-200 crew base leaving only CRJ-900s at the Minnesotan gateway. The added CRJ-900s will also see Endeavour Air open a new CRJ-900 crew base at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson which is scheduled to open in late October.
