Bucking Bar

Yep, they award international over nighters to morning reserve folks. Fortunately there was enough notice for me to run around the community and dive into the covers for a couple hours of sleep before duty in, otherwise I would have been up for 26 hours when we touched down. Mine was not near as bad as others have had it. The record among friends was around 30 hours.

Short call reserve is not duty. But, most of us manage our sleep like it is duty (early to bed, early to rise). It makes it difficult to anticipate and prepare for what you are obligated to do under our current contract.

Of course, safety comes first. If you really are fatigued (again, how do you predict how you are going to feel on approach after a 8 hour all nighter on the phone with scheduling 10 hours before? ) call it. Or ensure you buy the other pilot a double shot Venti French Roast on the way to the gate.

dragon

FTB, thanks for a lot of hard work. I guess there is always one person in the room that is never satisfied.

iaflyer

Wow - that's great, thanks for the hard work. Since someone complained there were no 7ER in ATL, I calculated out:

ATL
7ER A: 316 seats, 42% to hold, 30%/85%C to hold a line
7ER B: 515 seats, 92% to hold, 75%/80%C to hold a line

forgot to bid

Thanks ia, I copy and pasted your stuff in there. I don't know why I skipped it, I had it on my spreadsheet. But the one thing that makes me happy is your numbers matched mine. So... whew. I suffered in math classes, I was know for being "too creative" and not very accurate.

I just wanted to see where things really stood system wide. I know my % overall, so its interesting to just move down the list and see what I could hold and where I could hold a line. Or for the glass half empty folks, what you can't hold a line on or even hold.

The one thing I was looking at the ER on DAL-S. For a time it was 100% in NYC and new hires like me held lines, but not now. I also used to be ATL ER but now I'm not close. So the notion its junior is somewhat true but it WAS definately trending senior very fast and of course with the MOAB coming...

For what its worth, the most senior DAL-S hire post 9/11, i.e. February 2007, is 90.3% overall. The most senior DAL-N hire post 9/11 is 95.9% from September 2007. So you can make a guess if you're of the ATL caucus as to whether there will be anyone post 2007 (i.e. new hire) in either a widebody or 737 post this bid.

I just personally think, if the 765 is being split in half and going to NYC then either the ER should be increased by "10" planes or NYC 765 shouldn't even be in the bid until the 330 can be opened in ATL. I mean thats throwing a 16lb bowling ball into seniority down here. Wishful thinking.

beer

My Auburn wife is hotter

Check Essential

We're gonna need a picture for proof of that.

forgot to bid

Pandora's Box is now open.

acl65pilot

Great work buddy. My god, you just save 12,000 pilots a lot of work. Thanks. How did you get your wife to leave you alone long enough to do that. I could not even get 10 mins last night to make sure I had all of that system info down for my PC.

Bid is going to be big, real big. They may save a lot of guys from getting killed to. It just depends on a few things going forward. IE they are not worried about tweaking the bid after it opens for "developments" and that may happen.

Hiring rumor is still rampant, and I would expect to see something quantifiable here after SOC. It may not be this spring, but we need bodies. We might be smart in getting this training done first.

1234

Stock price is rising nicely this week. Short article from the WSJ this morning:

By Ann Keeton
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--Passenger traffic is steadily recovering at Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), putting the Atlanta carrier on track to report an 8% year-over-year decline in unit revenue in the fourth quarter, Chief Financial Officer Hank Halter said Wednesday.
November ticket booking volume is running ahead of last year, he said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference that was Webcast.
That's a good recovery from early this summer when passenger traffic dropped more than 20%. But, Halter said, premium-class ticket sales remain slow, as more business passengers are flying, but are buying less expensive tickets. "People are holding onto their money still," Halter said.
The industry is hoping for a modest recovery next year, as the U.S. economy gets back on its feet. If that happens, Delta would expect unit revenue, revenue per passenger per mile, to turn positive around the middle of 2010, Halter said.
"The challenge for the industry is that we don't start flooding the industry with capacity when demand isn't there," Halter said. He said Delta could increase seat capacity 1% to 2% by changing utilization of aircraft already in service.
"Right now, even if a modest recovery occurs, I would hope the industry maintains flat capacity" in 2010, Halter said.
Should airline traffic bounce back more quickly than expected, carriers would need months to bring more aircraft back into service. Delta, for example, has parked 50 planes, which would need maintenance work before they could fly, Halter said.
Halter said Delta is focused on adding revenue in the New York City market, where it's acquiring additional landing slots at LaGuardia airport from U.S. Airways Group Inc. (LCC), and on transcontinental and international flights.
The airline is in a dogfight to pull Japan Airlines Corp. (JALSY, 9205.TO) into its SkyTeam Alliance from AMR Corp.'s (AMR) American Airlines' oneworld alliance; both U.S. airlines have scheduled press conferences in Tokyo Wednesday to outline their plans. Halter said all SkyTeam members could benefit from the addition of JAL to their group.
Delta is ahead of schedule on generating financial synergy from its merger with Northwest Airlines, Halter said. He reiterated that the airline, now the world's largest by passenger traffic, expects to generate $700 million in new synergies in 2009. He said the company will give an update on financial forecasts during an investor day presentation on Dec. 15.
Delta remains focused on keeping costs down, Halter said. "You also have to have a fuel hedging program, using a combination of options and swaps" that cover both upswings and downswings in oil prices.

acl65pilot

Yep, they are really liking this company now that we are almost merged. I am still thinking we will see 18 a share by the end of next year or spring 2011.