hoserpilot

One of my neighbors works for Boeing's sim division. He has some clients from Europe that are getting some of the Click 717's. No word yet on whether Airtran's (Boeing) 717 sim's and techs will be staying or going. If I see a for sale sign in front of his house then we will all know that Southwest/Airtran will not be keeping their 717's.

georgetg

Those are the ones going to SAS subsidiary Blue 1

They are taking a total of nine 717s to replace their MD90s going to Delta. Not much more than another niche operator of the type...

The DC-9 stays even with oil at record levels.
That further shows that the ultimate retirement of the DC-9 is more contingent on a replacement aircraft and is not affected by the price of fuel.

My reading on the previously announced accelerated DC-9 retirement is that was a negotiating ploy to strike a deal with a rival airline for a 120 seat replacement aircraft...it might now be the deal fell though.

(The deal was to trade Deltas undelivered 73-8 positions to the ATL rival, take 717s in trade and retire a commensurate number of DC-9s as 717s come online)

Cheers
George


and receive new heavy-checks, it would prove true the parkiwould show that the DC-9

acl65pilot

And people think the 717 is totally off the table

I could also be a way to play hard ball as well......

georgetg

Taking back LAX:

(ok it's RJs but it's a start)

The airline with the "canyon blue" paint favors that "low margin" route

Cheers
George

georgetg

Happy to be a 5%er...
Composing new letters as we speak

Cheers
George

Brocc15

So May or June now? Last I heard it was supposed to come out end of April. I guess I can stop checking the crew resources page everyday acl you seem to hear a lot of the rumors and such before many others, what do you know about this early retirement rumor? Is it solely so that Delta can keep up with hiring, or is it because they think they have too many pilots? I am near the bottom so I get nervous with those kind of rumors, but nontheless like to hear what is going on. It sounds like if Delta is considering hiring a small amount on the next AE, the early retirement considerations would be solely based on out with the old, and in with the new so that they aren't hit so hard with the high retirement numbers coming up in a few years.

acl65pilot

I guess....

Talked to a CP last week and he commented that they had delayed the AE a few weeks so that they can get a better feel for the 2012 block hr requirements. (This is to be a 365 bid) That can change though and may right up to the time they publish it.

As for retirements:
I have heard of a PIRP rumor. It comes down to what is cheaper. PIRPS or fat staff jets to absorb the unknowns with pilot retirements. I know we are seeing more go than planned, and that there are a bunch getting very close to saying bye bye. That said, we probably need to preemptively hire. With fewer aircraft types in the mix, we have bottlenecks in our training pipeline. As a result our total new hire pilot output will be lower than it was in past decades. You either gamble that you will need to shrink and then can absorb the retirements, offer a PIRP or you hire early. That is something that, from what I can gather, is a moving target.

We will need bodies, and the number goes up as we move forward. I assume that once we start hiring it will be very hard to shut it down.

Amish Pilot

Mobile phone/tablet guys,

Any idea what browser will work to get into I-crew. I have a android powered Xoom and the last update to Firefox mobile messed up I-crew. I un-installed firefox, but I can't find the old version to re-install. What are you guys using?

Update: I just spoke with Delta IT, got the same old reply: we only support windows.

Pineapple Guy

I don't think that is true. It's been pretty typical for many years that total "retirements" equals mandatory age based retirements plus about 1% of the pilot group/year for various other reasons. And we've been pretty much sticking to that rate.

Brocc15

Thanks for the info and sharing your opinion. Do you or anyone else on here know approximately what the max is that can be hired and trained per year? Just doing some spreadsheet work while I'm bored on reserve, if that number were hypothetically 600 (I thought I heard that number somewhere, but could be mistaken), Delta would need to start hiring at that max sometime before 2015 and continue for about ten years or so just to keep up. I found that using two formulas, 20% retiring at 62 and 80% at 65, and then 80 % retiring at 62 and 20 % at 65. (yes I am very bored on reserve sitting in a crashpad)