Originally Posted by get there itis

I doubt we would see the 717 if we allow more large RJs. The company is going to retire about 200 50-seaters. Some of the contracts out there allow the 50-seaters to trickle out; others just end cold turkey.

200 50-seaters out = 10,000 seats. That's a big hole network has to fill. They need to make a decision and they need to make it very soon. I believe this is why we are in expedited negotiations. The question the company needs answered is, "Who's going to fly this lift?"

88 717s = 10,300 seats (what a coincidence). This would be just about capacity neutral. If we do NOTHING to our RJ scope, nearly all of the capacity lost due to 50-seater retirements would have to be replaced here at MAINLINE.

You're right, the hard cap on large RJs is 255. the ALPA people I've been talking to (MEC & local) are MISLEADING people by saying the company can just simply add more 76 seat RJs once we get to 768 mainline A/C. They are really not "adding" anything, they have to REMOVE a 70 seat get for every 76 seat jet they add. For some reason they casually forget to mention that.

What if we let the company have more large RJs in this contract? I've heard that 2:1 is what they are leaning toward. Would this reduce RJ block hours? Yes, but we sell seats, not pilot block hours here at Delta.

Sure the company would lose 10,000 seats worth of 50-seaters, but they would gain 7600 of them back with more large RJs. I highly doubt they would get the 717 under these circumstances. I would expect to here them announce that the price just wasn't right but they were able to get some great rates on a handful of A319s. all it would take is about 20 A319s to get back to capacity neutral in this case resulting in fewer mainline jobs.

The only way we'll get a TA out in the near term is if it allows more large RJs, lots and lots of them. Our current RJ scope is the only thing standing in the way.