Is Delta Hiring?

[twobits]

jon,

from Richard:
“It’s a fact that domestic U.S. growth in our industry will be flat or slow at best for some years to come,”

From ED:
“Hope is not a strategy, We’ve realized we can’t keep hoping oil prices will fall again. If they do, that’s great, but we have to price for fuel at the higher price it is now and build around that. We will also plan to reduce our overall capacity by about 5% this fall and look to retire some of our older, less fuel-efficient aircraft."

 

[twobits]

I wonder what winter will bring. Widebody capacity is increasing in order to build international traffic, which is great news. As that grows though, an overall 5% reduction makes a considerable dent in the narrow-body fleet (i.e. DC-9's). It isn't the end of 2011 yet, so you can't tell me I'm wrong until December 31st, 2011! This is not doom and gloom - just the way things are jon. I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you, primarily because I only log into this thing very sporadically - for good reason! Next time I log on in 4 months, we will still be talking about the same thing; when is Delta going to hire?

 

[twobits]

Finally, read this statement:

Richard forecast a profitable year for Delta, in spite of economic uncertainly and fuel costs that have remained high. He said a focus will have to remain on lowering the airline’s nonfuel costs.



This is codeword for hub consolidation, and what can we get out of our employees and suppliers?! Airline management 101! But don't listen to me.... I'm always wrong.

Final question for you to ponder, Jon. How many mergers have created an airline larger than the sum total of the original airlines (in terms of airplanes, pilots, etc...) 5 years after the merger? Think of the past 30 years...... ok, my rant is over.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

Why don't you do some research and see how many 90's DAL has taken delivery of in the last three months....

 

[twobits]

right.... they are there to take over flying from the DC-9.... that will be leaving us by the end of the year, or mid 2012. It plays into hub consolidation because the 90's take the traffic of two hubs to one city. If there is an overall decrease of 5% in flying, but more MD90's come on property and international traffic increases..... where is the loss??? DC-9s gone, earlier than any pilot is told............. coincident with the early retirements, hub consolidation, cost cutting, etc.....

 

[ACL65PILOT]

right.... they are there to take over flying from the DC-9.... that will be leaving us by the end of the year, or mid 2012. It plays into hub consolidation because the 90's take the traffic of two hubs to one city. If there is an overall decrease of 5% in flying, but more MD90's come on property and international traffic increases..... where is the loss??? DC-9s gone, earlier than any pilot is told............. coincident with the early retirements, hub consolidation, cost cutting, etc.....

I agree we will see Hub consolidation. I suspect MEM and the 73N in CVG will be gone. The 320 will be moved to ATL from MEM and the 73N will go to DTW. Given the mainline flights each of these aircraft perform out of these two "Hubs" the impact is marginal. Most of the rotations built out of these hubs are on leg to another hub and then the balance of the trip is flow out of the other hub. We have seen that for years.

The consolidation will get rid of a little bid of credit on a few trips, but most of that will be done away with when the 330 and 320 open in ATL next month. The rest of the credit time that is built in to our rotations is more efficient than rebasing pilots. (Ref 13 Asia trips and 6+ day Europe trips)

In the frequency regeime, much of the MD-90 flying is and will take over CRJ flying. The frequency will be cut, but the service will be mainline. Most of the 9 flying frankly will go to the E-Jet. We have seen that as well. Some will go to the MD88/90 but most has gone the other way. Block hrs are down at DCI, and off 20% since the peak summer season at mainline. I would suspect a 3-6% decrease in summer block hrs next summer if the world financial condition does not dampen.

The fact is that, given DAL's network, moving of the MSP Sims, Slot Swap, age 65, FT/DT etc, there will be a need to hire. I disagree with the 8,500 number you publish, but I can see us going to near 11,000(at the worst) at our low point. In reality the direction of future pilot staffing, but not until the 2017 time frame (no more acquisitions) The only reason we would even go that low, is due to retirements outpacing hiring. FT/DT alone will add somewhere between 300-700 bodies in the next three years. The killer with that is the max amount of duty in two weeks, not the block time, or circadian limitations. The one thing DAL cannot afford to do is furlough. We will be fat this winter, but not as much as ppl think. A lot of training needs to be done in the shoulder months so that they can start moving sims.