The Cavalier

I ride USAirways every week and I've never heard them say that. JBLU yes but Airways guys either don't care or want to leave the business.

johnso29

Now we are going to receive KCM cards and won't even have to give or EMP # or show out passport! Winning!!!!!

Ferd149

Just looked at the list of RMA guys (it's on the DALPA board) and we are losing a Latest and Greatest Bubba.

Enjoy retirement Maddog Max, I'm going to miss ya in AMS! But stop in here from time to time, if nothing else just to rub it in on how good retirement is.

Your little boy,
Ferd

Sink r8

Thanks Sailing.

Fly782

Is there a list breaking down the final numbers from each base/seat you could post?

Sink r8

Go up about four posts. It's coming.

TenYearsGone

My opinion/observation:

-We have an average of 16+ pilots per aircraft. I think economically we should be at 13 or 14. I guarantee you RA thinks less than that.

-RA likes to right size airlines. At NWA we had 6600 pilots. His goal was expressed to have less than 4900 pilots. This was before 9/11.

-With 3rd world airlines like AEROMEXICO/GOL in Skyteam, why would we grow? AM/GOL could grow much cheaper than Delta, while Delta could reap the profits and code benefits.

-Skyteam is a threat: Just observe the Skyteam growth. In my opinion, it is more economical to grow a cheaper run airline. Delta flights are being marketed as Skyteam because Skyteam is being diluted with cheaper labor and operational cost airlines. Look at all the 787, 777, 380 orders by our partners. Sure we ordered some 737s, but that is because Skyteam airlines other than Delta can not fly state to state domestically, yet.

-Outsourcing will kill our careers. It is on its way. Just look at the cruise line industry. Carnival Cruise Lines is a US based cruise ship operator. But none of their cruise ships are registered in the US. Why? So that Carnival can pay little or no US taxes, pay less to labor and pays little attention to US labor laws.

We need to be careful. Again this is my observation and opinion. I think Delta will be less than 9000 pilots in the future at this rate.

TEN

80ktsClamp

But sailing said this TA will increase us by 1000 positions! Surely he must be founded in reality and not down the same tunnel as t...

In fairness, hockey was incorrect on his memory of the 2010 hiring. It was only 250-300 from the get go, and that's what it was.

Sink r8

Interesting ruling on American's 1113 today...

gloopy

And a very large part of the BOS capacity reductions that have enabled massive, unchallenged JB dominance in that phenominal market is DL's surrender of much of it. IMO JB in BOS is even more vulnerable than AT was in ATL (even before the SW merger DL beat them back over 20% and since the merger they've went from 250 to 175 flights a day and falling), DL has just made an incredibly short sighted mismarketing decision to abandon the market (other than hub to hub and a small hand full of specialty routes). We're sitting on a severely underutilized Taj Mullin terminal and further funding JB dominance by taking all of UAL in addition to AS with suboptimal gate utilization for what we still do out of there. Meanwhile, JB keeps printing money out of that market and all we do is throw our hands up like there's nothing we can do about it. They're not just talking AA flying, they are growing like wild fire while DL, US and AA all mindlessly retreat to keep yields up. That stratedgy is pure amature hour and whatever little premium we reap from it now will be paid back with severe interest later in lost market share in one of the best markets in the country.

They have already reached critical mass with the business community there, despite the limited reach of their over all network (endless codeshares notwithstanding) that they have become a dominant choice for the localized network they've build there. People and businesses are flying them just because they fly so much out of there to so many places.

JB (and others like them) are especially vulnerable as the very quickly hit the back side of the power curve when they are ruthlessly competed against. When cornered, they will try to bleed you out with 25 dollar fare sales or whaver, and hope you blink before they do. So far its worked. Their costs are rising and they have big debt and MX payments coming up. Time to pounce hard IMO, but we'll probably just yield even more market share to them, keeping them in endless growth mode for many more years.

Their order book and the order books of those like them are for the most part a zero sum game, especially in a faltering economy. Someone will have to park planes and pull down regularly to accomidate their fantasy order book that is pure growth. Add VX into the mix, other ponzi scheme start ups and even balsy Allegiant moves and its war. All our generals have in their stratedgy book is to hide behind the Maginot Line of capacity reduction to enable them to continue to outflank us on their terms.