Delta’s Airbus Strategy: How It Took Over the Widebody Fleet

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Have you ever considered the aircraft type you’ll be flying on when selecting an airline? Choosing between a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and an Airbus A350 for long-haul flights could significantly impact your travel experience. On the other hand, casual domestic travelers aren’t likely to notice whether they’re flying on an Airbus A320 or a Boeing 737.

Nevertheless, airlines meticulously plan and strategize their fleet composition. For instance, Southwest Airlines still runs an all-Boeing 737 fleet, which helps minimize training and maintenance complexity. Frontier Airlines takes the opposite approach—an all-Airbus operation—keeping things streamlined on the ultra-low-cost side.

Delta Air Lines, though, stands out among U.S. carriers with a mix of Airbus and Boeing aircraft (plus a large regional partner fleet). The backstory behind Delta’s “mixed fleet” is genuinely interesting, and based on what Delta has on order, the split between what it flies today and what it plans to fly next is only going to keep evolving.

Delta’s Fleet

Delta used to make it easy to see a clean menu-style list of aircraft types on its site, but the simplest “official” place to browse what they fly now is Delta’s Aircraft Overview page. It links out to seat maps, amenities, and specs for each type:

Delta Aircraft Overview (official)

From our home airport in Orlando, we typically end up on Delta’s A321 family. On trips to New York, Minnesota, and Los Angeles, we’ve seen several versions of the aircraft, including Delta’s first A321neo — although it was a year after it entered service.

However, we’re the exception. If you’re connecting through one of Delta’s big hubs, there’s a good chance you’ll wind up on one of Delta’s Boeing 737 variants, which are still among the fleet’s core domestic workhorses. And looking ahead, Delta’s plans still include more 737s in the years to come.

Every so often, we’ll even get the option to fly a 767 to Atlanta, which is always a fun reminder that Delta is one of the last major U.S. airlines still flying the 767 in meaningful numbers.

As of Delta’s most recent year-end fleet snapshot, the 767s are definitely “seasoned” aircraft: Delta’s 767-300ERs average about 28 years old, while the 767-400ERs average about 24 years old. Delta has refreshed many interiors, but these planes are still a throwback compared to what’s joining the fleet next.

And here’s where the Airbus story really shows up: when you look at Delta’s widebodies (the jets it uses most for long-haul routes), Airbus makes up the larger share. Delta’s Airbus widebody fleet includes A330s and A350s, and together those outnumber Delta’s remaining Boeing 767 widebodies.

That Airbus tilt is only expected to get more noticeable. Delta has an order for 20 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2026 (and a delivery schedule that stretches beyond that). Meanwhile, most of Delta’s biggest near-term deliveries are still focused on narrowbodies—exactly the kind of aircraft that dominate domestic flying and help airlines control costs.

If you want a deeper explanation for how Delta ended up flying “almost every Airbus plane,” check out this video (it also gets into the Northwest merger angle, which is a big part of the story):

Delta has been steadily building around Airbus for a long time, especially on the widebody side, and their current order book suggests that direction isn’t changing anytime soon. The fleet may stay mixed, but the balance—particularly in long-haul flying—continues to lean more Airbus than Boeing.

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Cover photo: Delta News Hub

This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary