boog123

Well, I have done those trips. 3-5 legs a day for 3-5 days straight. A grind when the weather is good, ugh when the wx is bad. I remember thinking "awesome, a 13 hour layover so I can eat, workout and sleep 8 hours". Now, the 717 will take a bit of the sting out of it with the FMS, GPS, but the trips will be a bit worse than before on the DC-9 a few years back, IMO.

It took a while to figure out why there were so many senior FO's vs. junior Captains out of seniority, but take the in QOL and the way you "can" pick up trips if you want, the 10-20K per year gets much smaller with the options.

johnso29

The DC9s are not being parked a year early. They originally were supposed to be parked in 2012, then 2013, & now 2014. And that's when they're scheduled to be parked, 2014.

But your overall career stagnation does stink.

FIIGMO

Bar, Good posts!


Still feel depressed about this MD bid! Looking at my W2 from last year wondering how things will shape up next year and will inflation compound the down grade losses!

Fiig

TeddyKGB

I don't believe that 9E will be costing Delta much money going forward. It will be dirt cheap feed for Delta for many years to come and they don't have to pay the middle man since we own them.

daldude

I do not have enough information about the inner working of crew resources to argue or refute. But at the crew resources lounge visit a couple of week ago they did not lead us to believe they were going to shut down the DC9 category this bid, there was concern about people bidding of of it though. However, I could have missed the shut down DC9 to avoid hiring slide though. Even a week ago Sailing was warning on this forum that the DC9's were going to be shut down early so they could avoid hiring. Because if they were going to keep the 9's open and man the 717 the company would have to hire pilots for sufficient manning. He also stated the ops would like to hire pilots but Delta would prefer to avoid hiring. And once again, crew resources in the second paragraph of the bid says "we do not plan to hire pilots to fill vacancies". So if you do not fill vacancies you are shrinking, no growth, no progression. Obviously what we don't know is how far delta plans to shrink. But what we do know is that at this point on this bid they are planning to shrink and do not plan to hire.

Elvis90

I took the plunge and bid ATL 717B. Maybe I'll finally be able to hold a line...then I'll select DTW 717B in the next bid, and perhaps they 'll eventually establish a MSP 717 base. I'll minimize my training footprint and get some time off for my move from TX to MN.

sailingfun

They were going to keep the nines through the summer of 14. That changed in the last 45 days. They will now be gone around the first of the year. I think once flight ops had a firm look at the block hour program they were able to make a solid case that they could not staff the airline unless they hired. The final choice was sadly to park the nines earlier then the last plan and avoid hiring. This is not good news but does again support that the TA did not cost us a significant number of jobs. If it had they would have easily been able to staff the nines without hiring and keep the nines.

TheManager

Guessing this individual is like some others we have.

Has a business or other lucrative income stream on the side. Bids very senior into a category. The pilot then bids prime trips that are easy to get off their schedule and easy to pick up and integrate by others onto their lines of times.

Most Western guys fit this description and many made much more from their side interests than they did from flying. Flying became like a hobby for them where they would come fly a good trip with a nice Mexican resort layover and stay current.

johnso29

............

johnso29

Was the trade off to keep some 757s flying?