Dash8widget

Actually, when were talking furloughs, the poop flows uphill. You loose the bottom 900 and the displacements resonate up through the seniority list. I'm glad that your in a position to not be effected by the loose of 450 captain positions - good for you. The bottom 900 are hating life, being on the street and all (I would be one of them), but everyone else is loosing bidding power as they're relative seniority is eroded.

For the record - I got you're original point, but I'm not sure if you got mine. Maybe you were to busy correcting my grammar.

Cycle Pilot

I thought these cuts were already announced?

alfaromeo

Okay, 1/2 of 1% is 60 pilots. Go to the DALPA forum and count up the individual posters. Probably 80% of the posts are made by 10 pilots and some of them support the union. Look at this forum, same thing. So if I am wrong, then please identify the other 40 pilots that make up the first 1/2 of 1%. Then identify the next 60 pilots that pull you to 1%. Then identify the next 1100 pilots that take you to 10%. Then identify the next 1200 that take you to 20%. You can use initials, screen names, etc. to avoid direct identification. You won't be able to because once again, Carl, you are wrong. 1/2 of 1% is pretty close to accurate maybe even generous.

The internet gives everyone a chance to have their say, only most forums are dominated by a few prolific posters that drown out the rest. Go ahead and count how many posts are made by SC, JF, RW, PK on the DALPA forum. Many others are afraid to wade into the swamp created by these few posters. In my many years hear the forum has never represented the will of the Delta pilots. Never.

Pro Fessional

Not the widebodies.

ExAF

I think there are a lot of pilots (just a hunch not a fact) that come to this forum and read but don't necessarily post. I for one rarely post but I do keep up to date and view a lot. I personally know of quite a few that lurk and never post. There is a lot of good info here and a lot of not so good info. Just because the number of active/prolific posters might be a small number/percentage, there are a lot of readers/lurkers. Just look at the number of views vs posters.

iceman49

Did anyone see the announcement of the retirement of 130 aircraft over the next 18months! What is the current crew rate per widebody aircraft? 7 to 9?

iaflyer

Well - that's the fuzzy part. Richard just threw out those numbers, without any way of how Delta was going to get to them. It's possible that they might be cuts that were already annouced, or cuts for aircraft going to heavy MX or to get lie-flat seats (good time in my opinion). Also, it's possible that those are "20 equivalent aircraft" which just might mean less flying for the aircraft we have.

It's possible that some of those aircraft might migrate from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or to South America. Or even domestically - they said in the call that domestic was doing well. Those B757-200ERs are very good aircraft for trans-cons, with the Biz Elite seating.

I think those investor calls are all about "we're cutting capacity and raising yields" these days. The stock price is already up 10% today on the news.

Steve Dickson always says they staff for Block hours, not aircraft, so this may not change where pilots are sitting, etc.

iaflyer

Yes, yes... but some of that has been announced, a bunch is at our regional partners, (CRJs and Saabs), some are DC-9s), but some of what they announced are new cuts.

---added:

The Delta press release at http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=1353 says "Announced the retirement of 130 of Delta's least efficient aircraft over the next 18 months, including the DC9-50 and Saab turbo-prop fleets, and 60 50-seat regional jets"

So, 60 of them are 50 seaters. (prob some already announced)
26 are Saabs that have previously announced.
39 are DC-9-50s (might be off, that's from Delta's fleet page) that were staying, then are going then some might be staying. This press release says they are going...

So that totals 125. That leaves 5 aircraft that I can't account for.

newKnow

alfa,

It seems that you are trying to have your cake and eat it, too. The amount of posters and the amount of visitors are two different values.

Just because someone doesn't post on the forum does not mean they don't visit the forum. There are a significant amount of people who lurk. So, your challenge for someone to come up with 40 names to prove your point that less than 1/2 of 1% of pilots visit the forums only measures the number of posters, not the visitors.

Now, maybe if you assume that those who don't post on the forums agree with you, then you can say that DALPA need not respond to the needs of the vocal 1/2%. But, that is a pretty big assumption to make, isn't it?

Carl Spackler

Well in your case, that would keep someone busy.

Carl