1234

I would say that there are at best 10% of the current NATCO instructors that commute. I always had the thought that this was going to happen, just didn't think it would be this fast. What I think is really going to happen when all is said and done here is that it may flush out a fair number of senior pilots in category's such as A320 and 7ER where they just may go to the equipment they can hold. Just speeding up the natural evolution of change.

While this stinks for me personally, as I am a current SLI instructor that does not commute, this is completely understandable as a business decision. I will have some decisions to make as whether or not to stay on my aircraft, commute to ATL to instruct, or move on to a different a/c. Nice thing is that it will not happen overnight. Those are my problems and just part of a business that is trying to succeed. At least I have good choices to make and not like many of the techs, maintenance personnel or people in other industries that have to make the hard decision to uproot their families in order to keep their job, or try to find employment elsewhere in this difficult economy.

acl65pilot

If I was in charge of staffing, I would be adding pad to the 744, and 330 immediately. The other jets are easier to fill with a quick AE, but those two jets are very susceptible to guys just leaving.

I also would be hiring at least two to three years ahead of the retirement wave. We can train maybe 700 new hire pilots a year. The bottleneck is the FTD's and the IOE process, not really the sims. With the retirement numbers we have starting in four to five year, I would want to get the most qualified applicants first.

That is just me of course.

acl65pilot

Other than what is in red, I agree.

DAL 88 Driver

The issue was first raised at 7:03pm CDT on June 1 in the DPA thread. The thread was almost immediately moved after that. The ALPA/JetBlue thread was only moved within the past 12 hours. Today's date is June 8. Why did the "process of moving both threads" take almost a full week longer for ALPA/JetBlue?

acl65pilot

I am referring to moving the other threads. I do fly you know. Look at my sked and you will see that I have had little time for anything but flying and sleeping.

As for the move of the DPA thread, I agree with it, but moving a thread I was part of in the past is not a decision I would make unilaterally. Now that the precedent has been set, I will move them freely.

1234

I agree that you don't need time in type to be a good instructor, but I really think that an instructor needs to have the experience to teach pilots at our level (ones that have a lot of experience and had those life experiences of "oh my, I am not ever going to do that again....that was stupid"). It is the instructors that have 1,000 hrs total time and think that they are God's gift to aviation that I have a problem with. We have all been there and grown through that phase in life. We (all the pilots at DAL) have been through the training/checking gauntlet enough times to make plenty of mistakes. It is the seasoned "pilot" that makes a good instructor and evaluator, at least that is what I think. Now, I will say that I think Delta has been doing a good job of hiring only those pilots that actually do have the life experiences. There are many DGS instructors that add a great amount of wealth from with varied backgrounds. Personally, yeah, I would like to have all SLI instructors because it would require more pilots on the seniority list, however, I don't see it happening and think that no matter what happens, DAL will continue to produce quality trained pilots flying millions of passengers each day.

johnso29

Well if we are going to play the 'time' game then the ALPA/JetBlue thread should be in the Majors forum A LOT longer. This is of course based on the amount of time the DPA thread was in the Majors thread. C'mon man. Let it go.

forgot to bid

Most of the DGS guys I've had were retired DAL Captains, some never flew the 88 for instance but had tons of time at Delta through a wide variety of Boeing aircraft... ... just teasing. But seriously, 756, 727, 737, DC9, 777, L1011, all of those types. They're big picture guys and we all know that the gaps get filled in talking to friends on the line.

Whidbey

ACL,

How would growing ATL cause displacements here? Wouldn't it stand to reason that not everyone who is on the 330 and 320 in it's previous base would follow it here, and would bid something else up there (causing displacements in the bases that lost the flying?) Or, does 330 and 320 time coming to ATL mean that there is going to be ER and MD-88 flying moved out of ATL? My initial new guy guess would be that bringing those aircraft to ATL would result in upward movement in other categories as ATL people bid over to the new metal.

Not disagreeing, just admitting I don't know how an aircraft move reverberates through the rest of the system.

Thanks in advance,

Whidbey

forgot to bid

I could see MD's on ATL MD88 even without moving flying to MSP. I could really see MDs if the A320 base opens hopefully offset with more A320 slots gained than 88 seats lost.

Hopefully the 330 would mean movement up but I have a feeling there are a lot of ATL folks who would just bid back into ATL and not commute to NYC for instance.

I'll take the 320 and 330 base though, but I think there will be MDs.