Delta Thursday said it agreed to buy 25 more Airbus A321 planes, the latest carrier to order new jetliners after a historic slump in air travel. Delta exercised purchase rights for the jets; its total firm orders for the narrow-body planes stand at 125. It also added options for an additional 25 of them. “Adding these new efficient narrowbody jets to our fleet means more career opportunities for our pilots and more capacity to grow our network during the recovery, solidifying our leadership position as more customers return to fly with Delta,” John Laughter, Delta’s senior VP and chief of operations, wrote in a memo to pilots. Other carriers have also been adding to their fleets this year as travel demand starts to perk up. US carriers alone lost more than $35b last year. Delta and other airlines over the past week have noted a rebound in bookings, though it’s been led by domestic leisure travel, not business and international travel. <br/>
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The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey approved a scaled-down plan to redevelop Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport -- where Delta is the anchor tenant -- after the Covid-19 pandemic put a $3.8b expansion on hold. The bi-state agency authorized a $1.5b first phase with the potential for expansion in the future at its monthly meeting Thursday. The Terminal 4 project, scheduled to begin before the end of 2021, would add two new gates for single-aisle airliners like the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 and eight gates for regional jets along with other terminal upgrades. Delta would have an option until the end of 2024 to expand the terminal to 11 or 12 gates for narrow-body aircraft. “It’s a vote of confidence in JFK and it’s a vote of confidence in the region. It is a vote of confidence in the ultimate return of air travel,” said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton. “But it also represents a 60% reduction in what we had originally planned for.” Delta has planned to move its regional jets out of Terminal 2 and centralize operations at Terminal 4, the largest international terminal in New York, since 2010. The Port Authority projects the first phase’s new gates would open in 2022 and construction complete in 2023.<br/>