General Lee
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2002
- Posts
- 20,442
A drag on revenue? Come on, Satpak again was right, it is the cost of doing business in different parts of the world. One size plane can't do every mission. How many planes does the US Air Force fly? I guess we could always do the job with F15s only, but we don't. When you fly hub and spoke, not every spoke is equal to the other spoke city wise. (I am trying to make this easy for you to understand) Just before the merger, the MD88 was the smallest mainline plane DL had flying, and now there are other options that DL has to it's disposal---A319s and DC-9s. They have already been mixing those through ATL (A319s are seeing more Caribbean stuff during the slower Summer months--St Kitts and Barbados for example, and the DC95s are doing FNT, GRR, DAY, CLT, etc). If you right size the plane to the route, more profits ensue probably. (especially with lower oil prices)
You're right about the losses, DL has had a string of them, but they have gotten considerably smaller (the last loss reported was $500 million less for that quarter than the year before), and now DL is forcasting a profit for the year. That should make you worried, because things are coming together and once DL is repaired fully, it will be one mean fighting machine. Last year you had a large loss too for the first time ever as I recall.
SWA hasn't been playing by their own handbook as of late. You have been steering away from your strategy of out of the way airports to keep your planes flying, to a strategy of take everyone on, even at very busy airports. The reason for that is because Kelly is trying to figure out what to do with the planes and airports are filling up. You still have planes coming in the next few years, but are running out of places to put them. INTL destinations could or could not be on the way, that is if your management decides to trust you to fly to those far off places. They already know your plates are full with VNAV and the new PFD. How much more can you guys handle, right? Throw in a Spanish accent with your new VNAV procedures and looking at that new PFD, and you guys would be lost for sure.
And really, you couldn't care any less about overnight cities? Really? That is sad. That just shows how dull your job is. You also don't care what you watch on TV, what your wife or girlfriend wears, and how many bags of peanuts you consume each flight. I actually care about the destination, even after all these years. I have a game plan on what I will do, what I want to see, and what I want to eat. Too bad for you, but at least you have the 1 2 3 rule so you can get drunk on your short layovers.
And Chase can make how much on a pick up trip? I bet DL can beat that. We have Greenslips with Conflict during the Summer, and that means some pilots can get paid double time for a new trip they are assigned, plus get paid for a trip that they were supposed to do originally. That can be 70 hours of pay for a 4 day trip. Um, that is $9000 at my scale, and I have had a couple over the last few years. For a 4 day trip. One guy on reserve I know got 180 hours of pay in one month, with 16 days off. (Rolling thunder) But hey, you still have AMA.
Bye Bye--General Lee
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