Alaska/Delta? Probably not

[moochild11]

Jeezus general..now you just sound clueless..a meteorologist will brief you the weather is below mins..now what? maybe you should just admit you don't know what your talking about in Alaska and move on..you know what an anemometer is? Cause we own those too..

 

[General Lee]

Jeezus general..now you just sound clueless..a meteorologist will brief you the weather is below mins..now what? maybe you should just admit you don't know what your talking about in Alaska and move on..you know what an anemometer is? Cause we own those too..

Really? Yeah, for some reason you think DL pilots can't handle it when weather goes below mins? OMG! Bail out!! You are a total idiot.... ONLY AK pilots can fly anywhere challenging..... Wow.

And anemometer, a device measuring wind speed? With a $1.3 billion quarter profit in Q3 alone, I have a feeling they can buy a few....


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Mookie]

I'm only bummed I'm not SE qualled anymore so I won't be able to listen to the s-show up there this summer with all that'll be going on. I for one think delta is going to murder us up in SE. Decimate us. Put us in our place. You know...show us who's boss.

Caveat emptor...
Mookie

 

[tailhookah]

The plane used (single class 190+ seats) 757, was too big for most of the routes. To fill the seats, the fares were lowered, and since Jebtlue was new at the time and had lower costs overall (longevity of employees was low also, many on 1st, 2nd year pay etc), they could handle the lower fares.


Would Song fail today with the addition of bag and change fees? How about with additional costs and higher costs at JB and SWA due to more senior employees?

Spot on! It would be hugely different today. Jetblue is no longer the cheapest and has a hard time going head to head w/ anyone anymore. The ELT has turned into a bunch of pansies when it comes to pushing the product on a head to head basis... hence that's why Barger has gone after the low hanging fruit in the Carib... and now he's trying to stretch a 320 from S. Florida to Lima... not working out too well.

Delta will continue to put pressure on B6 in the NE, especially out of NYC area... don't forget there's also a surging UAL and soon to be AA that are all retooled. Jetblue is in trouble and can't compete w/ the new legacy 800 lb. monkey. AS is better suited but still has some of the same issues ahead that B6 is facing on the other coast.

Tail

 

[moochild11]

General you have such a hair trigger to defend deltas greatness that you refuse to see the point..it has nothing to to with airmanship..is delta willing to spend the money and time to make operating in se workable? Build approaches..train pilots..keep qualifications year round for 4 months of flying..and yes buy and maintain their own anemometers to make 26 is JNU legal? The point is this is a hard place to dip your toe in the water and be successful.

 

[Carl_Spackler]

Is there anything that would stop Delta from "plagiarizing" the RNP into JNU? Then they would own an approach that looks just like the approach that AK owns.

 

[moochild11]

Is that how it works at the FAA? Just photo copy the approach and we are good?

 

[Mookie]

Just so everyone knows, the approach is only one part of getting into jnu. There's several other piece to even being able to start the approach and ground reporting that make it viable. But hey, delta I'm sure has it all figured out...

 

[AK737FO]

Truth

General you have such a hair trigger to defend deltas greatness that you refuse to see the point..it has nothing to to with airmanship..is delta willing to spend the money and time to make operating in se workable? Build approaches..train pilots..keep qualifications year round for 4 months of flying..and yes buy and maintain their own anemometers to make 26 is JNU legal? The point is this is a hard place to dip your toe in the water and be successful.

Spot on Moochild11.
I can't figure out why Delta would want to dip their toe into SE other than just a peeing match between CEO's. Delta's got tons of cash laying around right now, so they seem to be willing to waste some of it in SE. Those of us that have flown there for a decade or two know that they will not make any money, nor will they provide reliable service to the customers until they have the infrastructure in place that we have today.

Lets see, the snow should be gone by early to mid May on Mt Roberts, Eagle Crest and Sheep Mountain. When does Big D's first flight start? Late May or early June? That gives them at least 2 to 4 weeks, to hire the labor, buy the supplies, charter the helio to fly on up there to pour the concrete pads to begin building their own anemometers. What could possibly go wrong?

Even if they can get hill winds, can they build, certify and train the RNP in time? Also, I've notice several times this winter that JAWS limits, rather than the old hill winds limits, have improved our reliability. I made it into JNU three times last month on JAWS limits when I could not have made it in on hill wind limits. The (semi) new JAWS limits are great and an example of the good stuff our company does in an effort to improve our safety and reliability in SE.

Seriously, I'm sure that Delta will send some fine check airmen and line pilots to try to fly into JNU this summer. I'm sure that they will do a fine job and will keep their passengers safe. The problem will be when the weather does not give them VFR and they are stuck with the LDA to VFR mins. They will safely bingo to SEA or ANC and then Alaska will spend the next several days trying to clean up their mess of back logged tourists who have now missed their cruise ship departure out of JNU... It's going to be a mess and they won't make any money - but by golly their CEO can claim that his Johnson is a mm or two bigger than our CEO's!

 

[IBNAV8R]

Come to think of it, Big D has dabbled several times in the west coast market. Wonder how long THIS one will last.

 

[General Lee]

General you have such a hair trigger to defend deltas greatness that you refuse to see the point..it has nothing to to with airmanship..is delta willing to spend the money and time to make operating in se workable? Build approaches..train pilots..keep qualifications year round for 4 months of flying..and yes buy and maintain their own anemometers to make 26 is JNU legal? The point is this is a hard place to dip your toe in the water and be successful.

Would DL spend the money to compete into JNU? It appears so. Does DL have the money to do that? It appears so. Does DL have the resources to figure out how to do it? Yes. What I don't understand is how YOU don't understand that. DL adds new INTL cities all the time, with not only interesting approaches, but with language barriers. This may not be INTL, but the same amount of effort will be put into this, and there is time to train before it is scheduled to start. DL allowed each FNWA 757 pilot to do 2-3 touch and goes in actual empty 767s to get used to them. How much do you think that cost? I have no doubt DL will figure it out.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[General Lee]

Spot on Moochild11.
I can't figure out why Delta would want to dip their toe into SE other than just a peeing match between CEO's. Delta's got tons of cash laying around right now, so they seem to be willing to waste some of it in SE. Those of us that have flown there for a decade or two know that they will not make any money, nor will they provide reliable service to the customers until they have the infrastructure in place that we have today.

Lets see, the snow should be gone by early to mid May on Mt Roberts, Eagle Crest and Sheep Mountain. When does Big D's first flight start? Late May or early June? That gives them at least 2 to 4 weeks, to hire the labor, buy the supplies, charter the helio to fly on up there to pour the concrete pads to begin building their own anemometers. What could possibly go wrong?

Even if they can get hill winds, can they build, certify and train the RNP in time? Also, I've notice several times this winter that JAWS limits, rather than the old hill winds limits, have improved our reliability. I made it into JNU three times last month on JAWS limits when I could not have made it in on hill wind limits. The (semi) new JAWS limits are great and an example of the good stuff our company does in an effort to improve our safety and reliability in SE.

Seriously, I'm sure that Delta will send some fine check airmen and line pilots to try to fly into JNU this summer. I'm sure that they will do a fine job and will keep their passengers safe. The problem will be when the weather does not give them VFR and they are stuck with the LDA to VFR mins. They will safely bingo to SEA or ANC and then Alaska will spend the next several days trying to clean up their mess of back logged tourists who have now missed their cruise ship departure out of JNU... It's going to be a mess and they won't make any money - but by golly their CEO can claim that his Johnson is a mm or two bigger than our CEO's!

Sounds like you won't make as much money while DL is doing it. And, with DL's SEA "hub" growing, it makes sense to increase flights to cities that DL's best customers want to go to. Looks like many want to go to Alaska, hence daily flights to FAI, ANC (3), and JNU from SEA. If DL flies those, they keep the revenue instead of handing it to you guys. Makes sense. And, I'm sure Tech Ops is going through all of the JNU procedures right now, developing "green pages" that give DL procedures to specific airports. They do it all the time. Ever been to Quito or Tegucigalpa? Take a look on YouTube. DL 737s go into both of those, with a language barrier too. Not saying JNU would be easy, but I think there is enough time to prepare and make sure procedures are in place.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[moochild11]

With FIFTY meteorologists on staff anything is possible!! With all that money and expertise over there it's no wonder your #1 in on time and service and baggage and profitability(7% behind little old Alaska on a gross % basis in your most profitable quarter ever)..oh wait..what..there not?? How is that possible..they are so much bigger than everyone else..

 

[msmb]

Delta?...good luck with that.

 

[dontpost2]

This thread is really starting to annoy me. Saying that Delta or Delta pilots somehow can't fly in SE Alaska would be like saying (10 years ago) that Alaska could never possible fly to the busy airports back east or fly ETOPS across the Pacific. This argument is silly.

If Delta really wants to operate to JNU they will in time develop procedures to do so. Personally, I think this is all smoke and mirrors and you won't see it. Nor will we see much of a big AS expansion in SLC. It should be an interesting summer nevertheless.