seminolepilot

That's the Delta way. When I worked on the ground we would have RON flights coming from ATL that would be delayed due to thunderstorms during the Spring, and if the crew timed out they would just delay the flight til the next morning vs just cancelling it. It's just working the system to get the desired results and obviously its working.

Avroman

I'm sure it happens, I just don't believe that should be counting in a completion factor. Where does it end? "hey we ran out of crews Monday but we will just delay this flight til Saturday when we have extra reserves and a spare airplane. It's not cancelled it's just delayed 141 hours."
I've seen several flights delayed to prevent 1 cancellation that would have kept everything else on time. I just wonder at what point is the line drawn these days?
I understand in the hub and spoke design of Northwest, it was designed to be simple to just cancel a turn and get right back on time. IROP's lasted a few hours usually with NWA, cancel a bank and everyone is back on schedule. Delta has the opposite design, everything is basically a point to point structure that makes cancelling very disruptive but also causes delays, once they start, to continue for the rest of the day if not into future days.

As anyone who's worked with me knows, I am all for getting everyone where they need to go if at all possible, but I also won't "fudge the numbers or pencil whip the records" to make that happen.

CODs4ever

OK, thanks. Bad assumption on my part since I was the oldest in my interview group. I'd rather be middle of the class at my age than top of the class and 10-15 years older. You only live once!

On another note, they told us that training is about 3 months, but in other places I have read 8 weeks. Which is more accurate? They might have been including OE as part of that 3 months. Thanks.

SEMIslave

It could be anywhere in that time frame. It took me 3 months from day 1 of ground school to finishing OE. I was in the last group of guys in my class to finish because of longer breaks in training. I had a total of 4 weeks off during training where some hardly had a break at all. It all depends on how they schedule it.

CODs4ever

During the 4 weeks off from training, did you need to show up at the office or anything, or could you have gone down to Cancun and played golf?

NewOldGuy

Everyone in our class was done with OE right at 3 months. You can go where you like. You're off (and getting paid). They can always change your schedule. Though no one in our class slid left, it's theoretically possible, but they'd give you notice. Worst case you might have to leave cancun a day early, but on the bright side, the flight is free


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SEMIslave

There is nothing you have to do (other than study). It's basically paid vacation. I went to Europe during my 2 week break after ground school.

Aviationslave

I'm pretty sure they decide who finishes first based on total time. That's how they did it in my class. The first guys starting sim after a weekend off. The last guys waited two weeks.


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NewOldGuy

There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to who went to Ftds first? It was primarily luck of the draw. Pairings were based on matching similar experience levels to the max extent possible.


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Mistek89

Anyone commuting out of ORD or MDW to any of the bases ?