Originally Posted by Columbia

A Super Bowl First: No Cheerleaders
I guess they don't make them up North like they do down South.
Super Bowl: No Cheerleaders for Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers

Originally Posted by alfaromeo

Just a few facts to assuage the fears that have stirred around here lately. First, all jets are not created equal. We have added 10 777's to the fleet, which are the international adds since 2007. Those 10 aircraft produce as many pilot jobs as 40 DC-9's. That's right 40. The 9's are old and break a lot and so they don't fly much per day on average, they have lots of spares. Almost every time a 777 takes off there are 4 pilots in the cockpit. So the 80 or 90 DC-9's that have been parked since 2007 could be replaced by 10 777's and about 30 737's and MD-90's. At the investors conference call in December, Ed Bastian said that between 2010 and 2011 we will purchase 50 MD-90's.

If you look at the bid monitor report, you will see that in Jan 2010 our staffing formula required 9301 pilots. In January 2011 it's 9911. Someone talked about trend vectors, I'm not sure but that seems like a good trend. You can also see that we had 768 pilots on Mil Leave and furlough bypass in 2010. In 2011 it's 636. So the total pilot numbers have gone down, but the number of pilots in flying positions has gone up. We also have 82 new hires that have yet to cycle into active flying.

When DAL/NWA merged, the DAL contract allowed 63 76 seat aircraft and a total of 200 51+ seat aircraft. The NWA contract allowed 90 76 seat aircraft. Add those together and you would get a total of 153 76 seat aircraft and 290 of 51+. What we ended up with was 153 76 seat aircraft and 255 51+. So while it was not a tremendous gain, it was 12% reduction in total airframes allowed. That is another trend in the right direction.

When fuel goes higher, the airline will eliminate frequency and upgauge markets. The DC-9 flying will be replaced by MD-90's as they come on line, that is why there is a 12-18 month wind down of those airplanes, they need the MD-90's to get their mods. The new 70 seaters announced, and you should expect them to go up to the limit, will replace 50 seat flying, probably on a 3 for 5 basis. The MD-90's will also replace 50 seat flying by drastically reducing gauge. At the investor's conference they talked about how they have reduced ATL-DAB from 7 flights per day to 4 and the average gauge has gone from 66 seats to 138 (that is on slide 24 if you want to look). They are also getting more use out of each airframe because the larger network means you have less aircraft sitting around at out stations waiting to turn back into the hub.

I will go back to my first point. The pilots required figure has gone up by 600 in the last year. That will continue to grow as high fuel prices force decreased frequency and upgauging in markets. I don't think it will lead to massive hiring because we are slowly reconfiguring the pilot bases to have less deadheading which reduces the need for pilots.

While it is disconcerting to see management take the 51+ aircraft up to the limit, it should not have been unexpected. The JCBA did have a 12% reduction from the individual contracts and that is a decent first step. The trends are moving in the opposite direction from the last 10 years, you just have to dig a little deeper than the Yahoo Airline News headlines to find them.

Originally Posted by alfaromeo

While it is disconcerting to see management take the 51+ aircraft up to the limit, it should not have been unexpected.

Originally Posted by acl65pilot

They may not be Cheerleaders, but the pack does have a few ladies that wear the Packer Winter Garb at the games.

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver

A

1) The DC-9's have spares? I've never seen any DC-9's sitting around as spares. Every time I've had a replacement aircraft to replace an aircraft with a mechanical, they've taken it from another flight. It has never come from an aircraft that was sitting around as a spare.

Originally Posted by tsquare

That's pretty myopic. You've been around long enough to know that the system is incredibly large, and that the "spare" might not come into play until several flights downstream or even several days downstream. It's not like the military where the spare was sitting on your flightline.. it might be in a totally different city..

Originally Posted by tsquare

Just like having 6 SCs/day and the myriad other things that have come to light since BK, I hope the clue bird finally comes home to roost with the negotiators and they realize that if there is potential for something to EVER be a bad deal for the pilots.. it probably will at some point....

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver

Okay, I guess I should have also added that I have been told by Maintenance Control on numerous occasions that the DC-9 fleet is operating without any spares. Do you think they would know what they're talking about?

Also, don't forget that the DC-9 is a very small fleet that operates to a limited number of places. I think my observations with regards to spares is likely to be correct.