Reading between the lines
For the most part, it's true, it was pretty much what you'd expect. We were last in everything, now we're not last(read: we're next to last now), and we're going to do better in the future. Go team. There was lots of specifics on what we need to improve, with not so many specifics on how we're going to make it happen. The specifics he did mention were things we were aware of, ie. ATL airport renovation, ACARS, new gate management software, etc. The good news is, it appears the company is finally making a real investment in the infrastrucure that will give us the appropriate tools to meet our goals. The thing that wasn't addressed was the workplace attitude and how they plan to foster a better relationship between employees and management. All the new stuff isn't going to take us far if we still have the same workers using it.
The most interesting things I thought were those not explicitly said and the differences between this talk and what we heard from Drew three weeks ago(see my previous post about Drew's talk). The first was regarding aircraft deliveries for next year. It's still 15 planes which he said were to be used primarily for upgrading service. However, he also stated explicitly that there will be growth in ATL and DFW next year. Drew took a much more "no new growth" approach in his talk. Also, Drew told us that we were a very small sliver in the big Delta pie. Skip's presentation, however, showed that we operate 17% of all Delta flying, second in DCI to Comair at 20%. DCI comprises 55% of all Delta flying, bid D doing the other 45%. I believe the rest of the breakdown was Skywest 10%, and CHQ and ACJet 4% each. So, don't underestimate our importance to the big Delta picture. Finally, I posed this question to him: "3 weeks ago Drew told us that we had no money and Delta would not give us money to exercise any of the options that we currently have and we should not expect to see any aircraft beyond the 15 we have coming. Now we're presented with an RFP for 45 aircraft. What changed in 3 weeks that suddenly made this financially viable for Delta?" I was very happy to see that this question put him on the spot. His first response was "I don't want to disagree with Drew, but I have to disagree with Drew." The rest of his(and Brian's) answer was basically this: We were able to secure a better deal with Bombardier for new aircraft than that which we had on the existing options. Therefore, the Delta board, in their October meeting, agreed that it was financially possible to obtain more aircraft. Regarding Drew, he said that Drew did not have this information at the time. So, I never asked what kind of aircraft they were, he just offered that they were coming from Bombardier. So, at least that might put us a little more at ease that Chiquita isn't going to be the likely recepient. One positive is that Skip seems to share our distaste for Chiquita's presence and seemed to not be pleased that we were all being played against each other. Thought I don't know how much I can buy into it, he did seemed to express a committment to putting out a good bid on the RFP regardless of the outcome of our negotiation status. He said he would meet with the MEC personally to lay out exactly what the company thinks is necessary to be "competitive" and what assurances the company can give us in return that it will be worthwhile. I personally still have a lot of issues with the whole idea, but I came out of it with a better sense that Skip does have ASA's interests in mind and the screwjob is coming from higher up.
My realistic hope is that, growth or not, at least the new tools will help us become a better operator and we can have a little more pride in the work our team does. Skip said he felt confident that we will be competitive and receive some aircraft and I hope he's right. I've noticed though that we too have many folks with "young guy entitlement" syndrome who are willing to give it all away without question to be able to throw another stripe on thier shoulders. We have the responsibility to look out for all members of our pilot group, but 9/11 has taught us all patience and I hope we can look a little further down the road than just how many captains we can upgrade next year.