Originally Posted by
sailingfun
What you fail to acknowledge and DPA will have to acknowledge once they look at the numbers is that a airline has to have feed.
There are some feeder markets where flights would continue if we took the flying. There are many other markets where the flights would end because they would not be cost competitive.
I do know that with the smaller RJ's we can't operate them within a country mile of the contracted costs and we tried hard to show ways we could and never could come up with a solution. The net result of taking those jobs back no matter how they ran the numbers was always a loss of mainline jobs and a overall pay reduction. You gained some RJ flying in markets that could still sustain the flights at higher costs but lost mainline flying with the drop in feed.
DPA.
Sailing,
You make it sound as though all of the flying done by DCI is profitable for Delta. I don't think that's the case at all.
I remember when the infamous Fred Reid described the 50 seater as "self financing". That may have been the case when oil was cheap, but as oil has more than tripled it's a money loser. Additionally DCI's pilot cost have gone up as their pilots accrue more longevity with their carrier(s). My strong suspicion is there are precious few markets served by the 50 seat RJ that are revenue positive.
I think Delta would like to get rid of a whole bunch of them, but they are locked into contracts that preclude that.