Hey everyone,

This is a big week for the Braves and Atlanta… We start a three game series against the Yankees tonight and then host another three game series against the Red Sox, followed by a three game series against the defending World Series champions, the Phillies. And to add to all of that, there’s a chance I could be hitting against former teammate and friend John Smoltz, who as most of you know was with the Braves for 21 years and is now pitching for the Boston Red Sox! If “Smoltzy” ends up throwing against the Braves at Turner Field in a Red Sox uniform, that’ll be a pretty weird sight to see for everyone in Atlanta. Exciting week!

But I did want to take a minute to give a shout out to all the dads for Father’s Day this past Sunday. We played in Boston on Sunday afternoon, but I was able to make it back Sunday night when we landed to stop by and see my dad for a little bit. My dad has definitely been a huge part of my life. He’s put more time and effort into my game (all sports) than any coach ever will…because he’s been doing it since Little League! He’s definitely my biggest fan and one of my biggest critics, aside from myself. I used to take BP with my dad on the field a few hours before my high school teammates even got to the park, and by no means did he ever take it easy on me! But all the hard work we put in together, and all the Sundays after church where we’d load up the truck with buckets of balls to go hit, definitely got me to where I am today.

Father’s Day, a lot like Mother’s Day, is really cool around the MLB. If you watched any of the ball games on Sunday, I’m sure you saw the players, coaches, umpires, trainers and groundskeepers wearing blue wristbands and blue ribbon uniform decals. We also used special “Baseball Blue Ribbon Father’s Day” lineup cards. A lot of those items (wristbands, decals and cards) were auctioned off soon to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation. In 2008, the Father’s Day promotions raised nearly $2.5 million for the Foundation. The whole day is great. For Mother’s Day they taped a bunch of us sending a Happy Mother’s Day message to our moms, which was nice because we were out of town in Philadelphia. They did the same for Father’s Day so we all got to send our best on TV to our dads.

Unfortunately I was not able to do a Father’s Day trip, but I know a lot of people do that. If I was home and had an off-day, I’d probably take my dad to play golf and then we’d meet the whole family for dinner somewhere like Stoney River. Anyone take a special father/daughter or father/son trip somewhere? I do have a big trip planned with my dad and a bunch of the guys in our family for this offseason though. We’ll hop on a flight and head off, just the boys, for a long golf trip. It’ll be a delayed Father’s Day celebration I guess.

Happy belated Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Hope everyone had a great day and I hope to see a lot of you out for Delta Day at Turner Field tomorrow, June 24th vs. the Yankees.

Jeff Francoeur
Atlanta Braves

Happy Birthday to us! 80 years young today. We’ve come a long way over the past 80 years (we’ve even come a long way over the past year!).

And now thanks to our very own Archives Manager Marie Force, you can follow Delta’s rich company history, from our beginnings as a crop-dusting operation, our first headquarters in Monroe, Louisiana, how we coined our name “Delta”, stories from our first flight attendants, info on our prop planes from the early days, and more.

To help us celebrate, check out the below pictorial history of Delta Air Lines Flight Attendants from YouTube user CruzerToo for more great images of our flight attendants over the years. Thanks, CruzerToo!

And check out the pdf link to our 80 year family tree in the comments below.

Pass the cake!

Katie
Delta Blog

Hello from HKG. Weather here is hot and humid but Ships 1807 and 1809 are in full swing on the Lie Flat mod. It’s been some time since our last update so we have some catching up to do.

All 10 wingletted 767-300ERs are flying – seven of which are our 76T aircraft (12+ Hour flights with Main Deck crew rests). We’ll begin production on additional aircraft in the spring when our heavy maintenance line picks back up.

Delta now has 143 aircraft outfitted with winglets, 95 of which are the APB Blended winglet type. (This includes pre-merger NW aircraft).

On the 777-side, DL now has an homogenized fleet of 777-200LR aircraft as ships 7101 and 7102 were modified to add two incremental BusinessElite seats bringing the passenger count to 45 up front.

Additionally, we have begun modification of our 777-200ER fleet to add three Economy seats by door 3. Currently three of these aircraft are flying (Ships 7003, 7007, 7008).

Our 767-400ER modification is progressing. Pictured are two of our aircraft (1807 and 1809) stationed in Hong Kong at the HAECO facility being modified. A third aircraft is being modified in Atlanta (1805). I want to give a big prop to both Delta Base Maintenance teams and HAECO maintenance for an excellent job in support of these mods.

Lastly, all (8) pre-merger DL 757-200 ETOPS (75E) aircraft scheduled for the SATCOM install are now equipped and in-service.

Mike Kotas
Fleet Programs