Despite its age, and the advent of next-generation narrowbody families such as the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX series, Delta Air Lines remains a big fan of the Boeing 757, and is keen to hang onto these popular aircraft. With more than 100 examples of the type in its fleet, it isn’t going anywhere soon.
Delta Air Lines flies these twinjets on a wide variety of routes, and, while they have primarily been relegated to domestic duties, certain foreign destinations also see the type. Using data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, let’s take a closer look and see where Delta’s longest 757 flights go.
Delta’s 757 Fleet In A Nutshell
According to present fleet data made available by ch-aviation, Delta Air Lines currently has a grand total of 110 aircraft from the 
Boeing 757 family at its disposal. From a total production run of 1,050 jets, this figure represents a proportion of 10.48% of all of the 757 series aircraft that Boeing ever made. Delta’s examples are split between 94 757-200s with an average age of 28.7 years old and 16 757-300s aged 22.8 years on average
In terms of seating configurations, aeroLOPA shows that the 757-300s all have the same 234-seat layout, with this capacity split between 24 first class guests and 210 in economy. Meanwhile, the 757-200s have three different two-class layouts seating 168, 193, and 199 passengers, with the former of these featuring 16 Delta One business class flatbeds and being used on high-value transcontinental routes. Commenting on its 757s, Delta says:
“All cabins have in-seat power and 1,000+ hours of free seatback entertainment through Delta Studio, including movies, series, live satellite TV, curated playlists, podcasts, and a wide selection of games.”
The Boeing 757-200
This November, data from Cirium shows that Delta Air Lines has scheduled a grand total of 6,514 flights with its Boeing 757-200 jets. Collectively speaking, these services will offer grand totals of 1,266,583 seats and 1,258,076,046 available seat miles. Of the various routes served, the longest clocks in at a distance of 2,721 miles (4,4379 km), and connects Los Angeles (LAX) with Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) in Costa Rica.
Delta’s presence on this route with the Boeing 757-200 this month is limited to three round trips, with these operating every Friday outbound and Saturday inbound from November 14 onwards. The outbound flight takes five hours and 40 minutes, departing LAX at 23:15 and landing at 06:55 the next morning. After a 91-minute turnaround, the return leg leaves at 08:26, and, after six hours and 15 minutes, is scheduled to land at LAX at 12:41.
While the 757 has a considerable historical pedigree on the transatlantic market, Delta is not currently interested in flying these aircraft to Europe, due to drawbacks in passenger experience and brand perception compared to widebodies. Closer to home, Delta’s longest domestic flight with the 757-200 is almost as long as the LAX-Costa Rica leg, and comes in the form of the 2,701-mile (4,347 km) route from Seattle (SEA) to Lihue (LIH).
The Boeing 757-300
The stretched Boeing 757-300 has a smaller footprint at Delta Air Lines in terms of the carrier’s fleet, and this is reflected in the reduced scale of its operations compared to its smaller counterpart. This month, it has scheduled 1,306 flights with the lovingly nicknamed ‘flying pencil,’ offering 305,604 seats and 423,891,000 ASMs. All of these services are domestic, with the longest connecting Seattle with its main hub in Atlanta (ATL).
According to Cirium, this corridor clocks in a distance of 2,182 miles (3,512 km), and Delta served it daily with the 757-300 from November 1 to 8. This frequency was also reflected on the 2,139-mile (3,442 km) route from Atlanta to San Francisco (SFO) and the 2,079-mile (3,346 km) corridor from San Francisco to Detroit (DTW). Contrastingly, Detroit to Los Angeles, whose distance comes to 1,979 miles (3,185 km), will see daily 757-300 flights.
