Delta to shut down Comair - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

CINCINNATI (AP) - Delta Air Lines said Friday that it will shut down its shrunken, 35-year-old regional carrier Comair at the end of September as it switches more of its flying to bigger jets.

Comair has slashed its fleet, flights and workforce in the last seven years. A Delta official said the smaller regional planes cost more to fly in an era of higher fuel prices and to maintain as they age.

"We just really couldn't get the cost structure to where we wanted to get it," said Don Bornhorst, senior vice president of Delta Connection and a former Comair president. "It ultimately was a cost issue; it wasn't a quality issue with Comair. They're a good airline, great employees, very innovative ... we just could not solve the cost issues."

Delta, based in Atlanta, had about 500 of the 50-seat regional jets in 2008 and plans to reduce that to 125 within two years. Most of that flying will be done by new 76-seat jets as well as the 117-seat Boeing 717sthat Delta is leasing from Southwest Airlines.

Delta said Friday that it has stopped flying 16 of the remaining Comair 50-seaters, and will lease the carrier's other 28 planes to other operators. Bornhorst said employees have 60-day termination notices. A small group of employees will remain after the Sept. 29 shutdown to handle details of the closure.

Comair handles only about 1 percent of Delta's flying, so the closure won't result in significant changes to Delta's network. Delta also said it won't mean fewer flights out of Comair's base at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. Besides Cincinnati, Comair also has hubs in Detroit and at New York's JFK and LaGuardia airports.

Comair is down to 290 flights a day. More than 1,000 of the remaining 1,700 Comair employees are in the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky region.