Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
P-S-P
People Service Profits.
The displacements do not necessarily bother me. That is part of the business. What does get me is the reasons that we are overstaffed on our WB jets. Yes, Europe is down, but one must as if the cities we have opted not to serve are either down, or is it more profitable for the AF/KL/AZ/DAL JV to serve them though AMR or CDG? IMO the devil is in the details.
-Asia is doing very well. Opportunities exist, yet we see limited growth
-We are in a "new" three year measurement period with the North Atlantic JV therefore there is no corrective mechanism until after the measurement period is over. (Starting years two on April 1)
- Our block hrs will be up significantly in 2014 about the same time that the seat mods are done in our WB jets and the enforcement period comes in to play on the JV.
Coincidence? I will let you decide.
As an aside, I will agree that the JV production balance is a good deal for the pilots, but there are a few things that should have been added prior to implementation. As a result we need to play catchup in a few key areas. Of course many will argue that hindsight is always 20/20.
Re: Displacements
What gets me is the company simultaneously planning displacements while not offering the early outs to pilots. Are we overstaffed or aren't we? Take your pick but don't offer me two competing narratives that aren't reconcilable.
Re: Transatlantic JV
Production balance is a good thing for a JV, no doubt. I'm glad RD was thinking about ways to capture downside protection in LOA16 for the AFKLM JV, something the AF JV previously didn't have. The general concept of MOU14 was sound, capturing a greater share of the AFKLM/AZ flying even if we added the new 3 year compliance window from April 2011 to March 2014. It's there so we'll learn to live with it. While we can't make AFKLM/AZ change their tune and the enforcement window is open, we sure can call out management on the fact that the spirit and trend of the AFKLM/AZ is totally being abused. There is a price for being taken advantage of, even if it is legal...
Cheers
George
Here's my graphic to illustrate the point. It's based of Delta's own slide #8 from
Delta's Bank of America briefing 9 months ago. AFKLM/AZ numbers are extrapolated from the given JV Total and Delta share using a 50% production balance as the basis, with a lower production balance share the AFKLM disparity is amplified.
For context: RD quoted 6 to 7 Delta transatlantic roundtrip flights to gain 3% of the production balance.