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more at Delta and only halfway there

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9rj9

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 25, 2001
Posts
491
Delta Continues Pilot Furloughs
Atlanta, GA-based Delta Air Lines reported yesterday that the carrier will have a total of 806 pilots on furlough as of July 2002. This revised total reflects 61 new furloughs in addition to Delta's current total of approximately 745 furloughed pilots.

A spokeswoman for the company said Delta intends to furlough up to 1,400 pilots as a result of the events of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. "We regret the need to furlough any pilot, and we are working diligently to return every pilot to a healthy and prosperous airline as soon as possible," she stated.
 
Just so the fact are correct. We have 775 on furlough as of June 1, 2002 with another 31 for July 1st. They have continually announced that the 1,400 number is a solid number until they revise it. I will not speculate what the total will reach.
 
Things are getting better?!

Dude,

If you think things are getting better you haven't been reading this board much.

I fly with airline pilots in the ANG and they are not optimistic. Especially at Delta. Why recall mainline when the RJ can handle everything except international. Make that extended range international.

Truckmasters here I come...
 
Sentry,

In one respect things are getting better and that is loads are up. However, yields are way off and that is causing the continued losses for the airlines.

This does not include Southwest, Jetblue and I think Airtran who are low cost fare carriers and have never been dependent on the inflated revenue from the business travel segment.
 
Truck Master

Yea, Don't bail to soon.

Think about this , just what do you think those high paid pilots make?? could this be a way that Management trys to bust the unions I saw some thing like this on another post???

Some times big companies get caught on the other side of the fence with the share holders.

So, watch what is going on , here is a thought with all the forigen pilots that come over here , why cant we go over there????
 
Delta's "official word" is up to 1400. Rumors are surfacing that the company is revising that downward later this month. We have a bid out now with 20 vacancies to cover attrition. However, in July the bid is coming out with the displacements to retire the 727.

We'll see how it goes; check with TKane (a few posts above) he's a celebrity at DAL, unfortunately for the wrong reason.

See you back soon, hopefully...
 
Help me understand?

Okay, I'm confused.

Loads are up, yields are down - Raise the flipping seat prices!!! One airline (I think Northwest) tried to do this recently and few of the other airlines would follow thereby forcing a retraction of the price increase.

In the immediate months following 911 loads dropped drastically because of the "fear of flying" factor (understandably). It wasn't the price of airline tickets that caused the plunge in load factors. Now here we are almost a year later and people (as proved by the return to normal load factors) have gotten over their "fear of flying". You can't tell me that people are still "scared to death" to get on an airplane flight but are climbing on board because ticket prices are low. People value their lives at a little more than $200.

Granted, there are some business travelers that don't have a choice to fly or not and whose companies are making them take trips now that prices are lower. But if these companies were paying for the higher priced tickets pre-911 they will probably pay them now. (now that they know their employees won't refuse to fly)

If every airline agreed to gradually raised its prices back to pre-911 prices on a coordinated schedule (say 15%/month), I venture to say that load factors would not decline, yields would return to normal and airline furlough return/hiring would happen a heck of a lot sooner.

Again, travelers are not going to say "oh no!!, the price of airline tickets is back to pre-911 prices. I am not going to fly now. When prices were low I was willing to risk my life on an airliner, but now that they have returned to normal its just not worth the risk to fly."

I am not an expert in the psychology of the airline traveler nor economics but I do know how my friends and family feel.

Airlines must have a alterior motive as to why they are not doing everything possible to bring back furloughees because "if you raise them (prices), people will stay!!!"

As someone who is relying on being hired after furloughees have returned I think the industry needs to be doing a lot more than it is currently doing to expedite the process.

OK, I've vented!!
Cheers.
 
Jake said:

Loads are up, yields are down - Raise the flipping seat prices!!! One airline (I think Northwest) tried to do this recently and few of the other airlines would follow thereby forcing a retraction of the price increase....

If every airline agreed to gradually raised its prices back to pre-911 prices on a coordinated schedule (say 15%/month), I venture to say that load factors would not decline, yields would return to normal and airline furlough return/hiring would happen a heck of a lot sooner.


Jake,

I agree with your theory. Unfortunately, it was Northwest that blocked the fare increase each time and I don't understand why either. Continental initiated a $20 fare increase several time recently and were matched by all other airlines, except for NW.

Northwest doesn't appear to be financially better off than the other airlines. In fact, I understand they are laying off another 40 pilots very soon. Go figure
 
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DAL is using 9/11 to go around the scope language in the DALPA contract plain and simple. DAL doesn't wana run an airline, they just want to make their quarterly earnings reports. This short sighted view will come back to haunt them when the economy turns around and they find they've lost market share to American, Continental, and Northwest - all of whom seem to be interested in running Airlines (for now).

BTW RF, NWA seems to be trying (and failing) to expand market share with their tactic of keeping their fares down. The fact that AMR has a lot more cash then they do hasn't quite sank in with their management yet. This is more of a byproduct of a soft economy than anything else, and even thouth the recovery has been slow, it will come, hang in there.
 
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