Delta to hire again?

[propdog]

The key will be future bookings. Most of my flights have been half full. I did a DFW turn and we were half empty. That make me think uh-oh, not good. We will find out in a couple of months what the company's decision regarding furloughs.

Until we get a Single Operating Certificate, from which side we furlough from will be up to the company. Who side will they park? Who knows.

Pretty much the same deal on the international side. Most of our European flights are running just around half-full too....except Asia. NRT is still showing some pretty good load factors with some overbooked flights. But the rest of our international routes does not look too good on load factors.

Then again, January is the slowest time of the year.
Also, I did some research on load factors on other carriers like CAL, UAL etc. They are all in the same boat as well concerning loads....if not worse.

 

[nwaredtail]

2)Freighters going away. That's 300 plus pilot position gone. Many will retire or be forced to retire, i.e. over 60 SO's who missed out on 65.

actually, 224.

 

[JohnDoe]

I will say with out any certain info, that if I was not protected by this Seat Scope trigger post SOC, I would make sure I had my bases covered.

What is the date of hire for this "scope trigger" both pre and post SOC? I assume it applies to someone regardless of their FDAL or FNWA status?? Or is it only a FDAL clause?

 

[ACL65PILOT]

It is in the JPWA so it is for all.

 

[General Lee]

So if traffic continues to decline....the company has two choices.....

1. Keep pilots on the payroll that are not needed which increases costs....

or

2. Take out 6 high revenue seats...which will decrease revenue...

That benefits DAL how? Do either solutions help get the company back to profitablity?

Profitability? Have you seen any articles lately? Why are most airlines unprofitable now? It was due to high oil in the PAST 2 quarters. Oil is now lower, and after Q1 of this year, most airlines will be profitable, and Delta said lower oil will helps us get profitable for 09, and save $5 billion this year. With lower oil, we can have 50% load factors. A bad economy will force oil even lower, which is our 1st or 2nd largest fixed cost. What you will see is a parking of mo It and a decrease in frequency. If a route used to have 6 RJs a day on it, you may see 3 DC9s. Larger city pairs will have 3 757s, and a few MD88s or 73Ns.
There is a downgage on some routes, but shifting mainly to fully owned DC9s that used to only fly 4.5 hours a day on average, bumped up to 9 or 10, and those DC9s will go after Airtran routes that used to have RJs competing directly with them.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Superpilot92]

Exactly TB.

I have heard some very small rumblings of some early outs, but nothing that would make it to sound like a good rumor.
There are many ways to come up with this so called 10,500 number, but there are also a lot of reasons to avoid the furlough.
I will say with out any certain info, that if I was not protected by this Seat Scope trigger post SOC, I would make sure I had my bases covered. It just makes sense. Heck, I do and I have some cushion.
We may shrink with retirements, maybe a few furloughs, but nothing more for the next few years. I have always said this, what worries me the most is when we lose the no furlough protection in the JPWA. It is weak but after two years they could park all of the 9's or 88's for that fact, and the bottom 450 as TB pointed out would be gone with no aircraft on order and no recourse. If that happened it would be two years before the retirements started to truly kick in.
What we have is a few years to hope and pray that we as an industry see the passenger levels of yesteryear.

They cant just park all those planes with no replacements and still support the domestic and international markets. NWA has said many times before that post 911/bankruptcy that the domestic flying was cut "to much" to feed the markets. Those planes would have to be replaced with something and they cant just replace them with "RJs" per our scope unless they are flown on the mainline ticket. The good thing is that the -9s are paid for and are flexible throughout the system, especially valuable right now since the credit market is shot.

 

[FBN0223]

2)Freighters going away. That's 300 plus pilot position gone. Many will retire or be forced to retire, i.e. over 60 SO's who missed out on 65.

actually, 224.

I used Jan 09 Staffing.

B747-200

Capt 110
FO 93
SO 134
Total 337

 

[ACL65PILOT]

Want to bet Super. They did it after 9-11 and shrunk. RJ's filled some of it but not all of it. They can do it again in a receding economy. Never say never.

 

[General Lee]

What is the date of hire for this "scope trigger" both pre and post SOC? I assume it applies to someone regardless of their FDAL or FNWA status?? Or is it only a FDAL clause?

Sept 1st, 2001. After the SLI, lots of DL 07 hires were merged in with FNWA guys hired before that date. The only time those guys wil be protected would be AFTER SOC--which DL is aiming for Jan 1st, 10 but more realistically sometime in the Q1 of 2010.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

I used Jan 09 Staffing.

B747-200

Capt 110
FO 93
SO 134
Total 337

I have a feeling that will be done pre SOC. If that happens, they will offer those guys DTW/MSP/MEM/SEA---and a lot won't want to do that, and may retire.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

Pretty much the same deal on the international side. Most of our European flights are running just around half-full too....except Asia. NRT is still showing some pretty good load factors with some overbooked flights. But the rest of our international routes does not look too good on load factors.

Then again, January is the slowest time of the year.
Also, I did some research on load factors on other carriers like CAL, UAL etc. They are all in the same boat as well concerning loads....if not worse.

One thing that is good about our Europe stuff is that we both have a mix of aircraft for those lower loads. We got 17 ex TWA 757ERs that could be used to swap our larger 763ERs if needed during slower times, and we can place them on routes that do better during "our Winter" and South America's "Summer." It is called fleet flexibility. We didn't have that before we got the 757ERs. We just lowered the frequency on our ERs. I remember 72 hour layovers as common place in Europe during most Winters---which isn't bad at nice destinations. This is the slow season--always has been, it's just the economy hasn't helped any. This airline gears up for the busy seasons--Spring and Summer, and parking 100 RJs and some mainline planes means there won't be as many seats out there this Spring and Summner--which means we can funnel pax on our remaining planes.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Superpilot92]

What is the date of hire for this "scope trigger" both pre and post SOC? I assume it applies to someone regardless of their FDAL or FNWA status?? Or is it only a FDAL clause?

Basically it would be more benefitial for the company to furlough DAL pilots before SOC because after SOC the 2001 mark gets closer to the bottom of the list since the nwa side has 2001 hires mixed in with DAL 2008 hires.

 

[Superpilot92]

Want to bet Super. They did it after 9-11 and shrunk. RJ's filled some of it but not all of it. They can do it again in a receding economy. Never say never.

Thats why scope is there is it not?

 

[General Lee]

Want to bet Super. They did it after 9-11 and shrunk. RJ's filled some of it but not all of it. They can do it again in a receding economy. Never say never.

We have to feed our INTL connections, and we still have to compete with Airtran and other LCCs. Look at Virgin America and Jetblue expanding on transcons (JB announced BOS/JFK to LAX today). We have to compete still with those guys. We may not have 7 or 8 flights a day on those types of routes, but we will have a presence. (I don't know if we will do BOS-LAX though--we used to) 100 RJs are gone, with more to come. I see fewer frequecies overall, with fewer RJs and more DC9s covering. That alone will unclog the airways and save us even more money.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

Basically it would be more benefitial for the company to furlough DAL pilots before SOC because after SOC the 2001 mark gets closer to the bottom of the list since the nwa side has 2001 hires mixed in with DAL 2008 hires.

So far we only believe that your NWA 742s are getting the axe soon. We know that some MD88s and some 757/767s have been parked, but not to a large extent. It would be far more expensive to park the 742s after SOC, since those pilots would bump many more pilots at many more bases, causing a lot more training total. The only reason to keep the 742s right now is for the NRT slots, and they may be trying to get waivers to keep them, since very few airlines out there have the ability to expand there anyway. Every airline is pulling back, and most cargo carriers have parked their 742s already or are about to.

Bye Bye--General Lee