Livery Details
The Colors in Motion Delta Shuttle livery for the 737-800
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Why should this livery be added?
Delta Shuttle was the brand Delta used for their shuttle flights between the big cities in the Northeast United States like Chicago, La Guardia, Boston and Washington National operating every hour. Originally operated using 727’s, the fleet transitioned to 737-200’s and 737-300’s. In the early 2000’s, the -200’s were retired and replaced by -800’s like above with them operating into the mid 2000’s alongside the -300’s until all were replaced by MD-80s in 2006/7 and then the Shuttle brand being retired completely by around 2008/9.The routes all still continue with the triangle routes between La Guardia, BOS and Washington National still being some of the most frequent routes in NA, but now there’s no separate Shuttle name to do the services. Delta was the last to retire a ‘shuttle’ brand with US Airways having done so a few years earlier, though both kept operating the routes and the Shuttle services kept on going until American retired there Shuttle services in 2021, Delta now remaining the only carrier to run these routes regularly.
The shuttle services were originally run by Eastern but gained a competitor in 1980 with New York Air operating LCC flights on these shuttle runs. Eastern was purchased by Texas Air Corporation as it found itself struggling in the mid-80s and the shuttle flights were merged with New York Air but the merger was only allowed to take place if Texas Air divested some of their routes and schedules, which were then bought up by Pan Am who created Pan Am Shuttle. When Pan Am went bust in 1991, Delta purchased the Shuttle routes and 727’s to continue the operations. When Eastern was being dismantled in the late 80s, the Shuttle routes were sold to Donald Trump who created Trump Shuttle, a brand which failed fairly quickly and was picked up by US Air in the early 1990s, the competition to Delta’s Shuttle.
Another quick interesting fact, Delta’s Shuttle was launched on the West Coast between SFO and LAX in 2013 using 737-800’s, E175’s and 717’s, something retired by 2018. United used to operate a Shuttle service on this route from 1995 to 2001 too.