Backlash from "Fuel Conservation" cancellations

[General Lee]

General:

Your Priceline and Orbitz buyers probably will not know or care. Buyers like us who go straight to Delta.com and book by the destination and time are scrambling for other options. Once we find something else that works, we probably will not be back unless something happens with that option. Business people are busy and don't have time to be bothered with last minute interruptions to their travel schedule.

Weather and mechanical delays can be understood. Cancelling a flight because the airline put the wrong sized equipment on the route and no can't justify operating it is not acceptable.

We have had "wrong equipment"----RJs----on most of our routes for some time now thanks to Fred Greed, and most people have stuck with us. People in the US have short memories. We also have 40 million Skymiles members that won't give that up.

Where do you get "last minute" changes? They said 2 days in advance for notice. And, as I said before, walkup people don't really know if the next flight they walk up to is full or not. The flight may already be full. What do they do then? They wait for the next one with an open seat. Same applies here. There was no guarantee the flight they wanted was available anyway.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[737 Pylt]

Keep thinking that; you're loss is my gain.

Another wonderful thought for the day! Life can't be that bad for you can it??
737

 

[outtahere]

General, I have heard of drinking the kool-ade,but good Lord. Could I just hear you admit one time that your mgmt. has no clue what they are doing. You keep defending them even when they rape you repeatedly. You are starting to sound as if you are suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps because you see all of the "RJ" pilots out there taking a beating, this is the cause of your rosy attiude, but I assure you that we will not be the sole sacrificial lamb in this round. But now that we are competing for aircraft and our rates are being undercut by mainline carriers, we can all expect to be applying for wellfare in the near future. Maybe for once in your life you should forget that EGO of yours and realize that just because you fly a bigger airplane that dosen't make you better, or any safer.

 

[General Lee]

General, I have heard of drinking the kool-ade,but good Lord. Could I just hear you admit one time that your mgmt. has no clue what they are doing. You keep defending them even when they rape you repeatedly. You are starting to sound as if you are suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps because you see all of the "RJ" pilots out there taking a beating, this is the cause of your rosy attiude, but I assure you that we will not be the sole sacrificial lamb in this round. But now that we are competing for aircraft and our rates are being undercut by mainline carriers, we can all expect to be applying for wellfare in the near future. Maybe for once in your life you should forget that EGO of yours and realize that just because you fly a bigger airplane that dosen't make you better, or any safer.

That is ridiculous. I know we have some large problems at Delta, and I don't drink the kool-aid. I do try to look at the problems and I come up with my own opinions, which is legal on this board. If you want to debate them with me, fine. When I blame RJs for problems, I am not blaming the pilots inside who really have no say in the matter. Some of them do gloat about growing, and then are sad when they downsize. Same goes on at mainline. It is my opinion that Fred Greed bought too many RJs, and now we have too many 50 seaters that do not produce enough revenue. Some will say that we should have allowed more 70 seaters, but they don't see that allowing that could have cannibalized us even more at the mainline. The mainline is "supposed" to be the place pilots want to end up, with better pay and benefits. Tough times right now is lowering that dream. I can see that, but I don't have to like it. SkyWest pilots started this bad trend with the signing of the 99 seats for 50 seat pay deal. Then Jetblue assigned their pilots a krappy wage on their future 100 seater. Now a judge may do the same with us. There is a big difference with those scenarios.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[~~~^~~~]

General: I called to see what was up with this announcement and was told as an example that flight 1746 cancelled LAX to ATL this morning. The passengers were not told until they were at the gate and there were not any Agents there. If you are near a Company terminal a Gate Agent can look it up for you.

Good goes round?

Also - the SkyWest pilots voted down the 50 seat pay for 70 to 90 seat airplanes. You should be giving them credit.

Delta might have a use for those pesky RJ's - they could use them to cover segments where they arbitraily decide to cancel a flight and screw their passengers at the last minute. Us RJ drivers have lousy contracts with short reserve call outs. If Delta had their crap together well enough to cancel a flight 48 hours in advance (which isn't the case) they could use RJ's to fill the gap in the schedule.

 

[~~~^~~~]

There's a big difference between what AA announced and what DL announced.

AA announced specifically that certain flights were being cancelled in October. These flights were removed from reservations and can not be booked. AA even went as far as to announce the specific route pairings that were taking cuts.

DL isn't removing any flights. They are just telling people that at any given time they may cancel your flight if the load is light. There's no way to know if DL will cancel your flight until two days before hand.

With AA, you know in advance where the cuts are being made. With DL, it's a total surprise. Business people don't like surprises.

Amen!

 

[FDJ2]

never mind

 

[michael707767]

General,

I have to agree with the other guys about this one. Our managers have made another very poor decision with this one.

Gen, I have to agree too. Very bad decision. They would be better off just going ahead and for the next month or two trimming the schedule a bit. But if people cannot count on a flight going, why would they book on Delta? I know I wouldn't.

 

[michael707767]

Also - the SkyWest pilots voted down the 50 seat pay for 70 to 90 seat airplanes. You should be giving them credit.

Delta might have a use for those pesky RJ's - they could use them to cover segments where they arbitraily decide to cancel a flight and screw their passengers at the last minute. Us RJ drivers have lousy contracts with short reserve call outs..

Fins, I do give the SKW pilots credit. Amazing that a non union bunch is one of the first to have some balls.

And I have said the same thing about RJs for years. I remember about two years ago I was flying a 763 from ATL-JAX, last flight of the night. Full of course but on this night we were leaving behind 46 passengers. I remember the number, cause I got on the phone, called operations and told them they should gin up and RJ and get those people down to JAX. Nope, they would not even consider it. Given the reserve call out rules you guys have, I think that would be a great use on an RJ. And talk about good PR....we pull up and RJ and got the pax there, same night. But nope, Delta management cannot think outside the box.

 

[~~~^~~~]

Michael:

You have the right idea and I know that they can do it. I flew a Delta extra section with an ATR once to a city that had never seen an ATR. It was neat to do it. By the same token we have flights that are always oversold and need to be mainline.

 

[klhoard]

. . .<snip>. . And talk about good PR....we pull up and RJ and got the pax there, same night. But nope, Delta management cannot think outside the box.

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Should have called FedEx. . . . We do it all the time for boxes. . . .
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[General Lee]

Gen, I have to agree too. Very bad decision. They would be better off just going ahead and for the next month or two trimming the schedule a bit. But if people cannot count on a flight going, why would they book on Delta? I know I wouldn't.

Michael,

If that is happening for reasons other than wx or mx, then it would be bad. This bad press from Fins might persuade them to trim the schedule..... And I am glad SkyWest voted no. Now what will they do?


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[FNG320]

Overkill there Fins. AA and other airlines are doing the same, and jet fuel prices prevent most middle managers from flying corporate. And when will those VLJ's come out in mass? Years. This flight cancellation deal is temporary during the slower SEP/OCT timeframe. AA started it too.

Bye Bye--General Lee

General,
Don't forget that ASA is a DELTA Connection and that affects everyone's opinion of DELTA. You can't be #1 in Cancelled flights and #last in on-time arrivials and then have mainline cancel flights at random (at least to the public) and not get and deserve the bad press. Even if it was not true (but it is), preception is reality.

Highest rate of Cancelled flights: ASA (8.0%)
Lowest rate of ontime arrivials: ASA (59.6%)

Then Delta #3 in the Highest rate of Cancelled flights (Delta 3.1%)

(DOT August results)

....and these results are before the recent random cancellations....

Just the facts....

Just my opinion.....

FNG

 

[FNG320]

Hey, we average a dozen (12) flight cancellations a day out of thousands of flights. Easy there chief, stop drooling. Those flight cancellations are only temporary too, to get us through this slow season with unbelievable fuel costs. And your fuel costs are small? So is driving in an SUV to a plant 200 miles away, right? Wrong. Higher fuel hurts EVERYONE.

Bye Bye--General Lee

Like I said before, preception is reality. Temporary or not. Bad impressions last a lot longer than good ones. IF you burn someone, they will try to not get burned a second time. If the business customers leave even for a month or two, it will be harder to get them back, cause they will find it cheaper and more reliable to fly Air Tran or other.

Just my opinion....

FNG

 

[General Lee]

Like I said before, preception is reality. Temporary or not. Bad impressions last a lot longer than good ones.

Just my opinion....

FNG

Like your A320 incident in LAX? That wasn't a very good commercial for Jetblue. SNL had a great skit about it. I am very glad that it turned out well, though.

Bye Bye--General Lee