Delta Memo looking at planning for new narrowbody aircraft for MAINLINE

[General Lee]

I believe Mr. Anderson also once said he was "NOT" here to merge with Northwest. I dont believe anything management has to say.

Yeah, replacing older planes with newer ones is a JOKE. And, only RJ pilots will get to fly them. Yeah, that's the ticket......



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

General Lee, I got a company memo from my airline's CEO announcing that they had solved the staffing shortages by recalling all furloughs and hiring 72 more pilots.

The next memo I got was an offer for 200% premium pay to pick up a bunch of open time that was otherwise not going to be covered.

In the following weeks, I continued to watch staffing issues affect the airline's schedule.

That's a great story. Care to tell it again?

 

[RJLoser]

Yeah, replacing older planes with newer ones is a JOKE. And, only RJ pilots will get to fly them. Yeah, that's the ticket......



Bye Bye---General Lee

They'll fly them at your company with your pay rates.

 

[johnsonrod]

They'll fly them at your company with your pay rates.

Yeah, okay......

 

[johnpeace]

Yeah, you DAL guys are partners with management...that's why they bring you in the loop with stuff like this.

LMAO!

 

[johnsonrod]

Yeah, you DAL guys are partners with management...that's why they bring you in the loop with stuff like this.

LMAO!

I think it was a memo to all employees. Then the press picked it up. Go look on Yahoo Business. You sound paranoid, and you also don't want to admit that the General was correct. Your opinions so far haven't been close. Just sayin........

 

[Monster Buck]

The environment for paying a captain $157 per hour to fly to places ATRs used to go is not very ripe.

I wouldn't be too shocked to see DAL throw a few 100 seaters to mainline, but anything smaller is going to stay with connection. The other thing mainline is looking at is how much cheaper the regionals are than what they were. Regionals have come off their 6 or 8% profit margins, and some are even doing "at risk" flying now. This environment gives mainline a chance to fly connection feed for peanuts. Mainline is cheaper than they used to be, but regionals are super dirt cheap now. Why would mgmt. ignore that factor?

-I would expect that whenever DAL gets a new pilot contract, the captain of the smallest aircraft will top out near $200 per hour. Add enhanced retirement, and all sorts of other goodies, and then the regionals will really be a steal. I just can't see DAL agreeing to fly 100 seaters to DHN and MGM while paying some guy around $200 per hour, when they could contract it out at half the cost (or less) that they used to. Do the math on that.

SWA flies to cities that ATR's use to fly and at twice that rate. Everyone seems to think they are doing alright.

 

[JohnDoe]

Good grief people.

Negotiation time.

Pilot's contract is up in 2012. That article talks about aircraft to start in the 2013 time frame.

Management playbook 101: dangle the idea of "growth aircraft" in front of the group.

Boggles the mind how blind some are and continue to be. Wake up folks, you are about to get "owned" once again.

 

[General Lee]

Good grief people.

Negotiation time.

Pilot's contract is up in 2012. That article talks about aircraft to start in the 2013 time frame.

Management playbook 101: dangle the idea of "growth aircraft" in front of the group.

Boggles the mind how blind some are and continue to be. Wake up folks, you are about to get "owned" once again.

Hello? The planes are old. DL has old planes. And, these planes are NOT for growth purposes, but rather REPLACEMENT. You made the same dumb argument on the Majors board. Call their bluff (management), and go for pay and scope. They will still have to replace the planes. Get it? This is a very easy concept. Replacement is different than growth plans. The potential order is to replace DC9-50s, older A320s, and some 757s. Re-read the article please. You just got "owned" yourself.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[JohnDoe]

You made the same dumb argument on the Majors board. Call their bluff (management), and go for pay and scope.

And you made the same dumb response on the majors board.

The fact that you can't even envision that this could be management negotiation tactics 101 speaks volumes to how management has gotten what they have.

Gonna be first in line to give up scope for pay aren't you general.

 

[General Lee]

And you made the same dumb response on the majors board.

The fact that you can't even envision that this could be management negotiation tactics 101 speaks volumes to how management has gotten what they have.

Gonna be first in line to give up scope for pay aren't you general.

Great comeback genius. What??? How can this be a negotiation tactic when DL really does have older planes? I guess they should keep them around longer, while they turn in MX hogs, and keep older gas hogs around too? Your argument is very weak. And, NO, I won't be voting to give up any scope for pay, since the pay part will be a given thanks to the Airtran guys next door getting SWA wages. That makes it a lot easier to bring up the pay, when the same people management has been using to cry poor about during negotations just got a fat raise. Thanks SWA guys!

Anyway, I can see you are embarrassed thanks to getting "owned" twice on FI today. And while you're at it, you can read this additional article, debunking your theory AGAIN.


Bloomberg: Delta Air Plans to Order 200 Narrow-Body Jets, Seeks Options for 200 More
By Mary Jane Credeur - Jan 13, 2011 8:15 PM ET

Delta May Order 200 Narrow Jets

Delta Air Lines Inc. plans to order 100 to 200 narrow-body jets and seek options for 200 more, a possible record purchase as it moves to retire some of the oldest planes in the U.S. industry.

Deliveries may begin as soon as 2013 after a request for proposals was sent to “several” planemakers last month, according to a posting yesterday for employees on Atlanta-based Delta’s internal website. Airbus SAS, Boeing Co. and Bombardier Inc. are the biggest commercial-jet makers.

Ordering the full 200 planes would be a record, topping the plan unveiled this week by India’s IndiGo Airlines to buy 180 Airbus A320s with a list value of $15 billion. Delta would shed some of its oldest jets, including DC-9s that average 34 years of age and are among the most elderly aircraft in U.S. fleets.

“None of the other U.S. majors have planes as old as Delta,” said Jeff Straebler, a debt strategist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. “The big costs on older aircraft are maintenance and fuel, and it was time for Delta to look at this.”

Delta, the world’s second-biggest carrier, traditionally bought Boeing jets until adding Airbus jets in its 2008 purchase of Northwest Airlines. The competitors now also may include Bombardier, whose new CSeries is designed to compete with the smallest single-aisle jets from Boeing and Airbus.

Opening for Airbus?

“There’s a better chance for Airbus now that Delta no longer exclusively flies Boeing aircraft,” Straebler said. “Delta’s big enough that they could continue with both Airbus and Boeing families, and maybe even the CSeries.”

Boeing’s 737 and the A320 are twin-engine models seating about 125 to 185 people. Their list prices, on which airlines typically get a discount, range from about $63 million to $95 million, depending on the version. Buying 200 737-800s, the top- selling U.S. jet, would cost $16.2 billion at list prices.

The CSeries seats 100 to 145 people and is intended to replace older models such as the DC-9, which was built by a Boeing predecessor. Montreal-based Bombardier is targeting the end of 2013 for the first deliveries and said last year that the list price would be $52.4 million to $60.9 million.

Delta will consider “large, medium and small” narrow-body jets, Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson said yesterday in a separate weekly recorded message to employees.

“It’s important we take a very long-term view of our fleet,” Anderson said.

Aging Aircraft

A new jet order will replace planes including DC-9s that average 34 years old, Boeing 757-200s that are 18 years old and A320s that are 16 years old, Nat Pieper, vice president of fleet strategy and transactions, said on Delta’s website posting. The new planes would be used on domestic routes.

Trebor Banstetter, a Delta spokesman, confirmed the posting’s authenticity and said the company declined to comment further on its fleet plans.

“Airbus talks to customers and potential customers worldwide on an ongoing basis,” said Mary Anne Greczyn, a spokeswoman in Washington for the Toulouse, France-based company. “When it comes down to specific conversations about fleet needs and how Airbus can meet those needs, the content of those conversations, and even the existence of those conversations, are confidential.”


A spokesman for Chicago-based Boeing wasn’t available to comment yesterday.

Delta also has been acquiring used jets, including five Boeing 757-200s and 33 MD-90s, and will continue to look for additional used planes, Pieper said.

“We’ll evaluate all our options,” he wrote.

Single-aisle jets made up more than 80 percent of Delta’s fleet, which totaled 821 planes as of September. Delta said in October it was keeping its order for 18 of Boeing’s wide-body 787 Dreamliners, a new plane now running three years behind schedule, while deferring deliveries into the next decade.

A Delta order of narrow-body jets also would boost engine makers that are readying a new generation of engines that are about 15 percent more fuel efficient and quieter than the models they would supplant.

The geared turbofan engine from United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney and the Leap-X from CFM International, the venture of General Electric Co. and Safran SA of France, are the choices on the announced A320 unveiled by Airbus last month. The CSeries will run on Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan.

Current 737s use engines from CFM, while existing A320 models use engines from International Aero Engines, a venture led by Pratt & Whitney and London-based Rolls-Royce Group Plc.

Delta rose 10 cents to $12.61 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares fell 1.9 percent in the 12 months through yesterday.



Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[JohnDoe]

Anyway, I can see you are embarrassed thanks to getting "owned" twice on FI today. And while you're at it, you can read this additional article, debunking your theory AGAIN

Please......

You should be the one that is embarrased for buying those press releases hook, line, and sinker. Management would never obscure their true motives would they.

You just can't even see the potential for negotiation 101 here. They said that the replacements would be flown by delta employees in the release. When have they ever come out and said something like that? It's contract negotiation time. Watch their feet, not their words. They keep adding 70 seaters to dci. They just added some more recently. I am sure there is zero chance they want to put these replacements for aging aircraft at dci.

 

[Cpt Oveur]

Who is really buying the idea that Delta will be purely a wide body airline and leaving the domestic ops purely to C series and 76 seat RJs? They're going to replace their own metal, that stands to logic.

As far as a tactic for negotiations, now it may have merit, it's a very big carrot to hold in front of the pilot group, but it's never going to be tossed (entirely) to DCI.

 

[JohnDoe]

Who is really buying the idea that Delta will be purely a wide body airline and leaving the domestic ops purely to C series and 76 seat RJs? They're going to replace their own metal, that stands to logic.

As far as a tactic for negotiations, now it may have merit, it's a very big carrot to hold in front of the pilot group, but it's never going to be tossed (entirely) to DCI.

Don't think anybody has said that delta will be wide body only. I don't see all domstic going to dci, but I can potentially see anything under the 757 going to them.

LM has been quoted by many as having said delta should not be flying anything under the 757.

I was in a hotel restaurant the other day getting a to-go order. Some delta pilots were sitting at a table discussing scope (not much SA on their part, I was right there at the host stand). Let's just say scope was very much for sale, and the amount of an increase in pay was pathetic.

Our new mec chairman, in a letter, recently stated compensation was the number one priority. There was zero mention of scope in that letter.

Never forget this is the same group that first let the camel's nose under the tent with rj's back in the day, combined with the group that allowed compass to come into being.

 

[General Lee]

Who is really buying the idea that Delta will be purely a wide body airline and leaving the domestic ops purely to C series and 76 seat RJs? They're going to replace their own metal, that stands to logic.

As far as a tactic for negotiations, now it may have merit, it's a very big carrot to hold in front of the pilot group, but it's never going to be tossed (entirely) to DCI.

Both you and John need to re-read the articles. The planes are replacement planes, not growth planes. Can you please explain your carrot remark? There is still a current scope clause that will not be broken. Especailly since DL is profitable. And, the Delta CEO said these new planes would be flown by mainline crews. How again can DCI be tossed any new planes? Will I take a paycut to fly a "newer" A320 instead of the older A320 sitting at the gate? UMMM, NO. The planes need to be replaced, they are getting older. What is so tough about this issue? This potential order is for replacing older mainline planes currently flying. When you buy newer planes, costs go up, but so must fares. As airlines do better profit wise, so do requests for higher wages around contract time, and that also means management has fewer excuses to cry poor. Very basic concepts.


Bye Bye--General Lee