Justdoinmyjob

You seem pretty convinced about that. Hope you aren't just trying to sell yourself that idea. There were plenty of new hires at the legacies back in 2001 who told themselves that same thing.

Blkflyer

The Sky is Falling the Sky is Falling...

rickair7777

Both ASA and SKW are protected from cuts in flying as part of the conditions of the sale of ASA. A small percentage cut is permitted, but I think that limit has already been reached, at least at SKW.

If DAL wants to make big cuts, they will have to come from other regionals.

Justdoinmyjob

Oh, and Delta has a reputation for honoring all their contracts to the letter. If the flying is going to cost you X number of dollars but buying out the contract costs less than X, what do you think that they are going to do?

JetJock16

True, DAL is back against the wall and if they cut us anymore in SLC or ATL they’ll forfeit $125M that is due in Oct. 2009 (last installment of the ASA purchase agreement & this doesn't void the contract), but with fuel prices as erratic as they are it might be cheaper to lose the money and cancel flights. Only they can do the math but something tells me that they are going to do everything they can to get paid, so I’d expect the majority of the cuts from here on to effect their other code share partners.

What also amazes me is that DAL wants an all jet fleet. In today’s market airlines need a/c like the Q…………..period. We run the CR9 between ATL & GSP/BHM/BNA/etc, these flight are all around 30 minutes or less. If they ran the Q400 they'd have the same number of seats but with 1/3 the fuel burn and the Q’s performance you’d only increase the flight time by 5 minutes or so. Yes, passengers are afraid of props but who gives a rat’s ass. If you want a cheap ticket then sit down, strap in and shut up!

JetJock16

If they do buy the entire contract out (through 2020), it will cost them the buyout + $125M. Also remember that we are one of their lowest cost partners and we have the best performance out of them all.

But, then again, RAH was the “Regional Airline of the Year?”

Stryker

I just finished interviewing at ASA yesterday and they told us the same thing about the next 2 classes being combined. I was also told that this is TEMPORARY. The company is in the process of deciding how it wants to proceed due to the fuel price issue. They also said they are going to continue hiring as normal, but it might take more than a day or two to get assigned a class date. They are in fact still hiring, but it may be true that they are slowing down a bit.

Scoop

Do you have access to the contracts? I was told DAL will not release the details of their contracts with connection carriers due to competitive reasons. Unless a connection carriers is operating at the contractually minimum required flying, DAL can certainly cut back to that, and with certain advance notice this can also be lowered - even further but this process forces DAL to slowly reduce the flying and DAL cannot just cut flying in half overnight - unless like I said earlier a carrier is providing greater than the contractual minimum. If these fuel prices stay up this high I would expect this type of thing to continue.
I think these high fuel prices are somewhat of a "bubble" and they will eventually come down, but who knows when? At $110/barrel a lot of oil is suddenly viable, and if prices where to stay this high supply would eventually increase, at least short term. And who knows, if the U.S. ever decides to build another refinery maybe we could even increase prodution of gas and jet fuel.
Scoop

Justdoinmyjob

What you need to do is find the contract and find out what the out clauses are.

surreal1221

ASA's contract with DAL is for 80% of DCI flying out of Atlanta. And this was a 15 year contract. Not sure of the actual contract language, as I do not have this in front of me.

If DAL decides to go against this contract, it'll cost them the amount that they sold ASA to SKW for. I think it was around 420 million?

Nevertheless. . .the next few months should be interesting.