This snippet caught me eye tonight (in a company newsletter). Certainly, the "A" market (I refer to them Vanilla) and -200ER models could benefit from such a modification. I'm surprised Boeing decided to approach AA and DL over this, as both carrier's 777 fleets are stretched to the limits (AA to a lesser extent at present). Surely Emirates would jump on this as well, though they have recently announced plans to dump some of their Vanilla birds.
Quote:
Aviation Partners Boeing has approached Delta and American Airlines about providing a B-777 to be used as a test bed for a winglet modification to the aircraft. Delta has neither accepted nor declined the offer to participate in the program, but finds the potential benefits appealing. Since the real fuel savings from a winglet aircraft comes in cruise flight, who better to evaluate the savings than us [Delta]. There could be some real savings on the BOM-JFK run, which is over sixteen hours.
