SkyWest Airlines (OO, Salt Lake City) has announced it has entered into aircraft purchase agreements and capacity purchase agreements to acquire and operate fifteen additional new aircraft for Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) and five additional new aircraft for Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma International).
The Utah-based capacity provider said in a statement that the twenty aircraft will deliver from Embraer (EMB, São José dos Campos Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf) from September 2017 through the end of 2018.
Of the twenty aircraft, SkyWest will operate fifteen 70-seater E175 SCs for Delta under its Delta Connection brand while five 76-seater EMB-175s destined for Alaska will operate under its Alaska SkyWest brand. The EMB-175 SC aircraft uses a standard EMB-175 airframe but can be retrofitted to 76 seats if need be.
It is recalled the SkyWest announced last month that it had entered into similar deals with all three parties in which fifteen EMB-175SCs would be deployed to Delta Connection while ten EMB-175s would go to Alaska SkyWest.
"The expected delivery dates for the 45 total aircraft run from September 2017 through the end of 2018, with the majority of the deliveries scheduled for mid-2018," SkyWest said.
