Elvis90

Yo Jughead! I e-mailed the company and cancelled my order. Less than satisfied.

sailingfun

I am not totally sure what your driving at when you discuss 900 bases. There won't be any 900 bases. It will just be the 73N category. Pilots from any base could fly the aircraft and almost certainly it will vary month to month regardless of what city pairs marketing chooses to operate the aircraft on.
As far as DTW I would suspect it will see a continued addition of 737 time as more 900's are delivered. The company loves to open a base when adding block hours to a category. It greatly reduces their training required. As each 900 is delivered the 73N pool of block hours will increase. I would expect crew planning to want a absolute minimum base size of about 60 crews for efficiency. Crew planning will decide which base to allocate those block hours into however I would be very secure saying DTW will get to at least the 60 crew number.. There have been occasions where the company has restricted a variant aircraft to a specific base because of differences. I don't think that will be the case with the 900 but it could be a option initially until they get enough aircraft in the system to insure currency.
Keep in mind the following. This is a one year bid. That does not however mean that it will be inclusive of all increases or reductions in flying the next year. There will almost certainly be 2 to 3 more bids before next March. 20 crews are only 3 airframes. I think we take delivery of about 15 airframes before March of next year. Crew planning could choose to staff all those airframes in this bid but more then likely they will fund enough flying to keep the sims full and wait to see future marketing decisions before staffing for all the new 900's arriving by March of 14. It will be interesting to see the total increase in 73N positions system wide. Will the only increase be the DTW opening or will they staff additional block hours at existing bases or wait and post that flying in other bids this year?
Another issue in this bid is the DC-9. The pilots displaced off the nine can't really be used to fund the 717 flying since they start flying in Sep and the nines will be around at least through Feb of next year unless something changes. That is one of the reasons that flight ops wanted to hire 100 to 150 pilots this winter. They were not approved for funding the additional bodies. Adding those pilots would have really smoothed out the training flow. Now they face pilots displacing into the 717 and then bidding right out as we finally start to see significant upward movement with the block hour shift to the mainline. Carry the FO surplus a bit longer in existing aircraft while putting new hires into the 717 would really have simplified the training pipeline.
I think its a long shot at the moment but I understand that depending on the number of training events generate by this bid they might still consider a small summer hiring option to as I mentioned reduce training if they can sell it on a cost basis.

DeadHead

Spoke to them this morning. They told me they had to re-run some of the reports. I told them if I don't have it by Friday I'm canceling my order and going to another vendor.

Ordered mine over 5 weeks ago. I'm also done with them as well.
Over heard plenty of other venders with turnaround times of less than a few days.

Someone recommended Expert Per Diem Calculation Service Pilots Flight Attendants that seems to be my plan B. Anyone else use them before?


Who you decide to go with Elvis?

RockyBoy

Pro Diem could get you the report within a day. I had mine by Jan 5th. Awesome company and the service is outstanding. If you order and pay prior to December, they run the report through the end of October for you so when Jan 1st hits it only takes them a day to finish the report. I actually had mine within an hour of finishing the data download on the 5th of Jan. They also give you a discount if you do the preseason deal and will send you email reminders in the fall so you don't forget to do it.

Elvis90

Deadhead, I guessed. Sounds like others are finding success with Prodiem.

Moby Dick

Get over it. It ain't happening in your career lifetime. Delta can't duplicate the AS system and the only way you're getting the green off your route map is if DAL buys AS.

Time to worry about something you might have some control over.

Bucking Bar

Does this includes Capt. Dickson's latest podcast info? I forgot when he stated the DC9 would be gone, but Network wanted it later and Flight Operations wanted it sooner for just the reasons you mentioned. Both sides made their case and Flight Ops won the earlier retirement date. Capt. Dickson said this would be good for pilots, as would reduce the need for displacements to the 717 since the new flying could be "funded" with DC9 crews.

Note (change in terms): We were pilots, then we were staff, now we are funds.

Bucking Bar

Wasn't Western then what Alaska is now?

It already happened in my career lifetime, once. I'd be cautious before using absolute terms.

It may be as unlikely as ALPA recovering flying ... hey wait ... oh yah, I mean ... YAY!

717 isn't forecast for the left coast, but it would work quite well there.

Passengers prefer 2 x 3 seating too.

P.S. Anyone know if we are moving the MD95 / 717 seats t go with the DL standard?

P.S. #2: It has been noted that Delta pilots exclaim some pleasure in the idea of getting to fly Delta passengers and Alaska's pilots get whiny. Ahem ... what's wrong with us flying our own passengers?

If you're really PO'd just get Lee Moak to let you do an Alaska scope deal with Delta management. Apparently national sees no problem with making the Delta negotiating table a family style meal, and you don't even have to be family.

Moby Dick

You forget we already codeshare with two of the "big" three. So, unless UCAL decides to make a run at us, neither of the other two are willing to pay what it takes to buy us.

Why should they, after all? They're getting it for free now.

Step away from the crack pipe. Unless DAL is willing to drop 500 flights a day up and down the West Coast, you're cream skimmers at best. And the AS FF program will show you the error of your ways.

You should read your own propaganda. The new flying out of LAX is aimed at UCAL and USAAir, not AS. And, that's from YOUR own puzzle palace.

It certainly was. And DAL stripped the West Coast and put the assets into their East/West network. AA did the same thing with Air Cal and Reno Air. USAir did it to PSA. That's how we got where we are today.

Unfortunately for the biggies, its too expensive to buy us and too expensive to replace us.

If I were you, I'd sweat the sub commander uniforms worrying that SWA will scoop us up and your West Coast feed will disappear. If you really want to grab Alaska, better do it quick because the bidding war will be UGLY for YOUR bottom line.

Or you could just quit worrying about the left seats you're not holding and concentrate on the flying Mama Delta wants you to do. After all, if you want to be a Captain so bad, you could always bid JFK.

scambo1

I'll lay money on DC9A 80kts Clamp if he bids it. or voluntary displacement to it.