More Delta MD90s

[ACL65PILOT]

Correct you are Nu, and this is coming. It is material change that is out of hand of DAL, so yes, it more than likely will work in their favor.

As for DAL, I am sure that we could hire with in a month or two if need be.

 

[jester757]

LAX will have some growth but we have a very nice code share agreement with ALK for a lot of it. We will be doing a little more flying there in the near term. In the long term you are correct. IMHO I think that we will be one if not the biggest operator out of LAX in the next five years.

As for feed. You are correct, and that is the way that our company sees it. The RJ has a place. The 50 seat RJ is good for places where they can charge a ton for a ticket. (ALB, BQK et al) The 76 seat jet is a good filler for our 130+ seat jets. It is just a filler though, not replacement.

As you see us go to a different philosophy in how we "net" our passengers from CONUS you will see the need for RJ's totally change. (Less not more) As we see more and more cities served by DAL et al, you will see less frequency to many markets, but the gauge will be larger. It is not that they do not want to offer more service, it is a constraint issue. We need the slots all over this country and what better way to serve more of this great country than to have more cities served by larger jets.

There will always be a DCI, I do not think that anyone can say other wise. The scope of DCI and their scope will change. That is better for this profession. You will see many of these contracts lapse when they come for renewal. Some may get renewed, but they will not look anything like they do today.

This management team is in to getting the most bang for their buck. The way they want to do this is as I described above. There will always be a place for RJs's, just not the place they had today.

To address the ability and desire to move quickly as we see one or two fail and two merge, they are definitely doing this. We are seeing DAL carry a decent amount of pilots for that very reason. We are also keeping our parked aircraft mission ready. The ones that are coming up for their heavy checks, have been parked and as we see the need for these jets rise,they will put them in to their check and have them ready very quickly. Some of that will be happening in the very near term. Some are ready to go. Fact is that our managers are very astute in decision, and when, not if one fails we will be moving quicker than you have seen anyone move.

Nice post. I have heard the same on both the 4th floor at DAL South and the 3rd floor at DAL North... just hope these guys can pull it off. I guess we will see here shortly.

 

[catIIIc]

Heyas ACL,

Right you are. Additionally, if the rumored to rest rules come to pass, the marginal RJ operators will fold, as fee-for-departure contracts will NOT be re-negotiated to allow for the higher costs that the rest rules will impose.

Many of the operators will simply go TU, relieving the need of Mama DAL to terminate their contracts. At the remaining carriers, the costs will go up to the point where it is simply more economical to run the lift at the mainline.

The rest rules will also likely require the majors to hire, and there is zero in the pipeline. This will put additional cost pressure on the remaining regionals.

Interesting times ahead...

Nu

Nu ,

I hope you are right about the new rest rules, but I think the ATA will be all over this along with the RAA saying all the stuff you said above are the reasons we don't need new rest rules, ie loss of jobs by airlines shutting down, loss of airline service, higher ticket prices, etc, etc. This is by all means not a slam dunk.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

And I am sure that our new leader of the FAA will tell them where to stick it. Fact is that he has probably wanted to do this for a long time.

Yes, the third and fourth floor are both talking about this, but it does not originate there. It comes from the guys in route management. They are the ones that are running this company.

 

[Speedtape]

LAX will have some growth but we have a very nice code share agreement with ALK for a lot of it. We will be doing a little more flying there in the near term. In the long term you are correct. IMHO I think that we will be one if not the biggest operator out of LAX in the next five years.

As for feed. You are correct, and that is the way that our company sees it. The RJ has a place. The 50 seat RJ is good for places where they can charge a ton for a ticket. (ALB, BQK et al) The 76 seat jet is a good filler for our 130+ seat jets. It is just a filler though, not replacement.

As you see us go to a different philosophy in how we "net" our passengers from CONUS you will see the need for RJ's totally change. (Less not more) As we see more and more cities served by DAL et al, you will see less frequency to many markets, but the gauge will be larger. It is not that they do not want to offer more service, it is a constraint issue. We need the slots all over this country and what better way to serve more of this great country than to have more cities served by larger jets.
Please explain the above paragraph, specifically, but not exclusively, the first sentence. In regard to the second sentence, it does not make sense, as you mention, that there will be less service but larger guage. In any market where there is competition, especially with RJ's, it is doubtful that you would see larger guage aircraft with less frequency be a successful venture. In fact, in alot of medium size markets, where there is competition, in the past, mainline aircraft were withdrawn because every market will only yield a finite volume of traffic. When that traffic was redistributed, by the introduction of smaller aircraft with more frequency, in many cases, it diluted traffic to the point that a viable load factor for the mainline jet could not be maintained. It is flawed thinking to assume that because a mainline jet is introduced into a market that "they will come." For the most part, customers do not care. In addition, the competition will respond in various ways, including pricing and frequency. There are probably very few markets where there is a monopoly.

There will always be a DCI, I do not think that anyone can say other wise. The scope of DCI and their scope will change. That is better for this profession. You will see many of these contracts lapse when they come for renewal. Some may get renewed, but they will not look anything like they do today. Agreed

This management team is in to getting the most bang for their buck. The way they want to do this is as I described above. There will always be a place for RJs's, just not the place they had today. To Be Determined

To address the ability and desire to move quickly as we see one or two fail and two merge, they are definitely doing this. We are seeing DAL carry a decent amount of pilots for that very reason. We are also keeping our parked aircraft mission ready. The ones that are coming up for their heavy checks, have been parked and as we see the need for these jets rise,they will put them in to their check and have them ready very quickly. Some of that will be happening in the very near term. Some are ready to go. Fact is that our managers are very astute in decision, and when, not if one fails we will be moving quicker than you have seen anyone move.

Hopefully, the plan will come together.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

It many cities you are correct. There are more than a few cities that DAL has put hourly RJ service in to. These are the cities in question.

Even some of the medium markets that we fly in to are getting mainline lift. Take MDT for example.It was a 732 city and went to the 50 seat jet for the last seven years. Now you are seeing mainline show up there again. IND, PHF, and PIT are more. These were served exclusively by RJ's a year or so ago. Now you are seeing aircraft up to the size of a 757 going to some of these cities.

Fact is that DAL can fill up an RJ with 150 tickets or a 757 with 150 dollar tickets. It is kind of interesting, as I have pointed out. IND is a good example and one that I have looked at in depth. They had 76 seat jet service, and then one day added a 757. Well that 757 was back to the gills. Ticket price remained the same, but they made more money because the cost per seat went down. The RJ's before and after were always full as they had always been, but they added 130+ seats to the market and filled all of them. The price point did not change.

We have seen this in many cities. You are also correct in stating that there are some cities that this would not float. Places like PIA, FNT, ATW etc are great examples of this. We are seeing this type of phenomena occurs in cities where there is at least 1 million plus within an hr drive.

The economics and reasoning of the early part of this decade is changing. We are slowly seeing this. The will probably mean less service to small markets and probably less cities because we are dumping the 50 seaters, but this is what they are doing. I am sure that when this team leaves we will be back to having RJ's being the savior. It is quite cyclical.

 

[Noserider76]

Hopefully, the plan will come together.

This merger should in theory allow larger guage aircraft on many routes. If you had DL pulling pax from IND through ATL and NW pulling pax from IND through DTW you should be able combine those passengers on a larger aircraft to one of the hubs. A much larger enitity should be able to upguage many of the markets served due to the higher number of passengers served. I see the opportunity to convert formerly outsourced feed routes into mainline routes all across the country as quickly as DL can get get out of it's current contracts.

 

[poor2thecore]

Just a question about -88/90s going to MSP and the Bus going to SLC. What will pick up the load in ATL with the -88/90s going to MSP, and in MSP with the Bus going to SLC?

 

[ACL65PILOT]

90's will be from SLC and the 320's that will be moved from MSP will be filled in by the 90's.

 

[NuGuy]

I am sure that when this team leaves we will be back to having RJ's being the savior. It is quite cyclical.

Heyas,

The trick is to get scope enhancements/recapture flying while the opportunity exists. If management wants to dump RJs, now might be the time to negotiate.

As you point out, it's MUCH harder when the next guy comes along, and acts like he gets a personal check from Embraer for every RJ DAL buys.

Nu