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Delta Reports Record December Load Factors!

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How many FNWA 757 pilots were displaced in this last APA?


Bye Bye--General Lee


I dont' think that any were displaced on the last APA (they are published the 20th of each month). Crew staffing told me that they are going to displace 12-15 a month, depending on bid-outs to other categories (a few captain and widebody FO awards expected). Crew staffing said the only reason they are displacing is because they have to staff the -9 (sounds like a similar situation at DAL and staffing the 88). Nobody wants to hire and the head of pilot hiring said no plans right now for hiring or recalling pilots to NWA. If the economy improves and we are able to begin expansion, that will change, but no hiring in the near term.
 
Airtran's load factor was up 7% in December despite the economic mess as well. We will see when 4th quarter results come out in a few weeks, but I would bet both Delta and Airtran are seeing high load factors due to Airtran's dropping of ticket prices as their fuel expense dropped 60%. It is also helping that the rest of the industry is doing some major capacity reductions.
 
Exactly.
With the forcaseted drop for the summer months, taking 40 seats of each segment makes perfect sense. It is also why this merger works for the company, even if the pilots do not like it.

Taking these seats out but maintaining the frequency affords DAL a lot of wiggle room. For one it reduces the elasticity of of our pricing power. Prior to this merger we would have not been able to do a fleet swap like this. Having 9's, 320's and 88's with lower utilization rates allows us to move airplanes on to different routes quickly.
We will up their utilization rates, and not have to incur the acquisition costs of a new jet. With out this merger you would see our ticket prices fall, and as a result massive losses.
This inturn would result in a loss of frequency and eventually massive furloughs and a liquidity issue. It is not to say that we will not furlough, but it is to say that with out this merger we would be fighting to survive in this environoment.
Do not take the downgrade personally, it would have probably meant a job loss otherwise. In essence the same situation that DAL and NWA just got out of.
As other airlines fail or go CH 11 you will be happy with that five leg md-88 sked.

This rarely works. You give up market share and decrease units in the hope of maintaining fares and a lower cost someone comes in and fills the capacity. Many times you never get back the position you had prior to the pulldown and you allow a competitor to grow and thrive. Bigger aircraft equal lower CASMs. These guys are high if they think a DC-9 competing with and AirTran 737 or 717 or a SWA 737 isn't going to get it's butt kicked. Maybe they didn't learn anything after the massive post 911 pulldown.
 
Ok guys. Let's not get too excited. From the quote:
Delta’s system traffic in December 2008 increased 0.7 percent versus December 2007 on a capacity decrease of 2.4 percent.

The increased load factor is a direct result of a decrease in capacity. If capacity was flat and load factor was up, then there would be somehing to cheer about. The point of cutting capacity is to increase the loads on the other remaining flights.

On a side note, Load Factor is a completely decieving number anyway. Load Factor = Revenue Passenger Miles divided by Available Seat Miles. To put it in perspective, and in simple terms, an airline could fly a flight with an airplane of 100 seats 100 miles that was 50% full and a flight of 900 miles with a 100 seat airplane that was 100% full and have a load factor of 95% even though only 75% of the seats were filled overall.
 

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