Originally Posted by
Xray678
If Delta management was operating more efficiently than anyone else, and was getting a higher profit than anyone else, would you want more money? Of course you would.
We are tied to this company, warts and all. If we were paid the same as SW without the same efficiencies what would that do to our stock price, and our ability to borrow money? How do we compete with SW if the pilot costs make our CASM much higher than SW?
Takee emotion out of it, and tell me how Delta can pay use the same as SW if we are not as efficient and don't have the same profit margin?
I think I understand your point of view, but am not sure you are hearing what is being said entirely. SW runs their op thin on reserves counting on greed? to pick up the slack. Efficiency in pilot utilization works because their daily rig is 6.5 hours; efficiency is the operation. DALs operation is inefficient due to our rigs which enable multiple hour sit arounds. Pay by the minute encourages a slow safe operation. The pilot groups are incentivised differently with pay.
For some reason our CASMs are already higher then SWAs (or so I've read). How? They are paid more, get better medical insurance, their premium pay kicks in easier and more regularly.
What would it do to the stock price and our ability to borrow money? Happy employees will work harder to make the operation better. Better operations mean better customer service. This means more customers would return resulting in higher profits and a more valuable stock price.
SWA has determined what is truly most important to their customers in order to go from point a to b. They herd them on the jet, water and peanut them then herd them off the jet. They have trained their customers to keep turn times low.
DAL has tried to experiment with the SW way in the past, but in the end, all DAL does is copy what other airlines (like American) do. There is no real desire on the part of DAL management to accomplish a full-on six sigma approach to streamlining the operation. In the end, what we end up with are non-value-added changes because some new manager makes a small tweak to a small aspect of the load-push-fly-blockin-unload process. There needs to be a sea change in the operation and it needs to be institutionalized.
I have great faith in the DAL pilots' abilities to make the operation better, but our input is only used to repair tiny pieces.
Management outsources half the airline, pays for the planes and guaratees the operators' profits. I am concerned about this and its long term negative results. We can borrow money, but dilute our stock price in the long run by not being our own network.
Trip/duty rigs force efficiency.
Premium pay fills cockpit seats.
efficient boarding/unloading shortens turn times.
non-outsourced employees improve customer care.
happy cows make better cheese.