Delta to view Comair bid

[SkyNation]

my hope is that Comair retains all their flying.


Delta to view Comair bid

Source: Excerpt from Cincinnati Enquirer

Eight days from now, Comair will submit a bid critical to its future.

Depending on how corporate parent Delta Air Lines views the bid, the Erlanger-based regional airline could ultimately see its payroll of 6,500 chopped by an estimated 850 pilot and flight attendant jobs - or boosted by 1,100 positions.

Delta is already sifting through bids submitting by other regional airlines seeking to feed passenger traffic to its mainline operations. Delta gave its subsidiary a two-week extension until Oct. 2 following the crash of Flight 5191 in Lexington.

While the crash will likely lead to settlements paid by insurers, Delta's need for lower operating costs poses a bigger threat to Comair. After a year in Chapter 11, the Atlanta-based carrier has focused its restructuring efforts on lowering its regional flying costs.
Managers at Comair, which followed Delta into bankruptcy, say the two starkly different paths for the company depend on their ability to win concessions from their three unions.
If they succeed, Comair will be able to submit a more competitive bid to Delta and possibly win new business. If they fail, the company fails, it will likely see current aircraft assigned to cheaper contractors and Comair will also shed jobs
.
In a memo to his employees just after the bid announcement, Comair president Don Bornhorst urged the unions to help submit a competitive bid.

"I realize people question Delta's decision to put our flying out for bid, especially because we are a wholly owned subsidiary," he wrote. "Whether we like it or not, we have to compete just as effectively on costs and quality as every other carrier Delta could consider for regional flying."

In August, Delta announced it was seeking new bids to fly 93 aircraft already being flown as well as for 50 future aircraft. Of the existing regional aircraft up for grabs, 42 of Comair's jets are seen as in play. Comair operates 27 70-seat jets that employ 22 crew apiece and about 15 50-seaters that employ about 17 apiece.

 

[ReverseSensing]

Was this a news article or an editorial? That's some pretty biased reporting if this was a "news" piece. Sounds more like a Comair management press release.

 

[ex j-41]

One Contract for all airlines would put an end to this maddness.

 

[regionaltard]

Was this a news article or an editorial? That's some pretty biased reporting if this was a "news" piece. Sounds more like a Comair management press release.

A corporation using the local media as a tool to strike fear in the hearts of its employees? STFU. Next thing you're going to tell us is that the rich guys who run the airline cooked this up with the rich guys who own the newspaper over a round of golf.......

 

[tired_pilot]

What a crock, Delta to view Comair Bid!

Delta owns COMAIR!!!!!

 

[ReverseSensing]

Next thing you're going to tell us is that the rich guys who run the airline cooked this up with the rich guys who own the newspaper over a round of golf.......

Come on...I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. This sort of thing doesn't really happen. That's just Hollywood.

 

[ReverseSensing]

What a crock, Delta to view Comair Bid!

Delta owns COMAIR!!!!!

And being "owned" by Delta means everything. After all, "Good Goes Around."

 

[Dave Benjamin]

I think CMR will keep or maybe even pick up additional flying. DAL is realizing their mistake of giving flying away to the low end of the market. I bet their NY passengers are really enjoying those 1900's that were supposed to have been Dash 8's. There's an old saying we had in the construction industy.

The bitterness of poor quality outlasts the sweetness of a cheap price.

The legacy carriers are doing better financially and if they plan to retain customers they will have to reassign flying to carriers that offer a superior product. That might have been the plan all along. Bring in a company like Mesa to shake things up and drive some cost concessions and once they get some relief they can throw Mesa to the curb so their pax can enjoy more comfort and better reliability. As airline economics improve I think we'll see more flying shifted away from the cheap lift. In the long run it's probably cheaper to use carriers that actually get people to their destination nearly 100% of the time than it is to piss off the people providing revenue and have the additional expense of hotels and rebooking.

 

[regionaltard]

There's an old saying we had in the construction industy.

The bitterness of poor quality outlasts the sweetness of a cheap price.

The legacy carriers are doing better financially and if they plan to retain customers they will have to reassign flying to carriers that offer a superior product.

My grandad, a builder of museum-quality furniture, always said that cheap tools were a luxury that no craftsman could afford.

Sounds like Frontier's looking for something between Playskool (Mesa) and Snap-On (Horizon). My guess is that Ma Delta is too strung out to pass up another hit on the concession crack pipe, and is still in no mood to forgive Comair for the colossal ass-whipping they administered a few years back. SkyWest can grow exponentially very quickly by simply transferring ASA assets, and we already know that their employees will do whatever it takes to "grow." My money's on them, with a few scraps thrown to Shaniqua consistent with the "not too many eggs in one basket" lesson Delta learned the hard way.

 

[CrownandCoke]

The bitterness of poor quality outlasts the sweetness of a cheap price.

mind if I use this as a quote???