Originally Posted by
georgetg
I doubt there are many here who "don't want Delta to make money"
Let me see if I can paraphrase:
By having Alaska pilots fly the Delta code, Delta is able to be in markets it would otherwise be less or not profitable. As a result Delta is effectively offering more seatmiles without the associated overhead of flying it in-house.
The employees benefit because as the company is more profitable it is able to pay its employees more money.
Fast forward to 2025 (Hypothetical)
Delta is the largest airline in the world with the most seatmiles of any airline out there. Delta flies an all wide-body fleet, and has contracts with various lift providers around the world to feed the operation. There are 5000 pilots on the seniority list and for the last 18 years not one pilot was furloughed. Captains pay is between $275-300/hour and FO pay is between $205-230.
By comparison Southwest airlines, now also a global carrier, ranks number two to Delta in seat-miles. The two companies are equally profitable, but Southwest chose to grow organically after a disastrous merger with Airtran in 2011. Southwest flies a mix of widebodies and narrowbodies on all of it's own routes. Southwest has 12000 pilots on its seniority list. At Southwest Captains pay is between $240-295/hour and FO pay is between $190-225.
Considering the above scenario:
- Were we successful as a pilot group?
- Were we successful as a labor group?
Cheers
George
This is a great post in that it should invoke a lot of thought about the long term consequences of JVs and the use of regional jets because they make the company money and that's good for pilots. Something that should've been done in 1993 when the CRJ-200 was introduced if websites like this one had existed.
I seriously doubt, seriously, that in 10 years we have more pilots than we have today.
I don't ever see us growing much larger than we are now fleet wise. Just replacing and outsourcing.
As to Southwest, I don't see them getting much larger in their NB fleet. I could see more jets coming but eventually 717s, 735s and 733s replaced without many more 73N orders. After all to go into some markets that are weak to begin with and compete for business is something they, like us, won't do either.