Delta Air Lines is sending termination notices to Comair employees, as Delta begins shutting down its shrunken, 35 year old regional carrier and switches to bigger jets.Comair is down to 290 flights a day. More than 1,000 of the carrier's remaining 1,700 Comair employees are in the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky region, some 700 of those in Kentucky.Comair has slashed its fleet, flights and workforce in the last seven years. Delta said the smaller regional planes are expensive to fly because they are not as fuel-efficient and cost more to maintain as the fleet ages.Comair handles only about 1 percent of Atlanta-based 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.Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear calls the news of the shutdown “terribly disappointing.”
