Delta to Cancel Contract with Pinnacle Due to Late Flights (That Delta Scheduled…)
Jun 11th, 2008 | By Jared BlankI know most of you don’t care about the relationships between airlines and their regional partners, but bear with me for about 3 sentences: Delta told its regional partner Pinnacle that it will be canceling a 10-year agreement they have because Pinnacle’s on-time record isn’t meeting standards. Pinnacle, in response, said that they told Delta when Delta came up with Pinnacle’s schedules, that the timings were unrealistic. Now Delta is canceling the contract because, well, the timings were unrealistic. Pinnacle will likely sue.
Delta is already embroiled in a lawsuit with Mesa Airways’ Freedom Airlines, which got a court order preventing Delta from canceling their agreement.
Some who follow all of this suggest that Delta is trying to cut these agreements to help ease the merger with Northwest.
I can’t speak to Pinnacle, but in the case of Freedom Airlines they’re truly the worst regional provider in the U.S. They’re the only one that’s arguably worse than Atlantic Southeast (also Delta, not a theme? Delta regional providers outside of Comair need to be dumped). Legal/contract issues aside, no traveler should shed a tear.