The DC-9 replacement dilemma pestered NWA through the 1990s and 2000s – while the carrier made the best of its situation during the economic troubles after the Gulf War by renewing interiors and making smart maintenance investments that preserved capital and extended the “Nines'” lives, the strategy only pushed the decision of what to do farther into the future.
In retrospect, looking at the success Delta had with the Boeing 717 (nee MD-95), one could make a strong argument NWA should have secured orders at the beginning of the program. But that’s the start of a different aircraft story – instead, by the mid-2000s Northwest was tallying the positive passenger experience and premium revenue coming its way from Mesaba’s Avro RJ fleet and considering how it could use large regional jets to replace the smaller DC-9s entirely. As British Aerospace was giving up on its commercial aircraft program, expanding the Avro fleet was out of the question – and there were new entrants promising mainline amenities with lower maintenance requirements, using lower-wage Airlink crews.
By mid-2006, NWA had narrowed the candidates to Embraer’s E-jet series, and Bombardier’s larger CRJ models. Northwest’s priority was to ensure the jet they picked could handle a reasonable number of domestic First Class seats while maximizing Coach passenger counts but staying inside its Pilots’ contracted scope clause. In the end, NWA picked both aircraft.
By the time of the Delta merger, NWA had assigned 41 -900s to Mesaba, and 16 to Pinnacle, in keeping with those carriers’ specialization with the smaller CRJ-200. In contrast, Compass received the entire batch of Embraer 175s. Delta would later acquire more -900s and assign them to SkyWest. The final deliveries of this batch in March 2021 would also turn out to be the final Bombardier CRJ Series constructed, after that company sold its commercial program to Mitsubishi.
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