Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
Sam Mason does a great job for our pilots.
Back when this deal was done (and immediately appeared in peril) the CS Committee pointed out we were tracking about where we had been prior to inclusion of Alitalia in our JV. As stated in the previous post, our MEC wants to grow our flying and achieving growth was thought to be well worth the "price" (my characterization) of the expanded measurement window. At the the time it was management's stated intention to grow to 50% of the bigger pie (with AZ filling). Then the European economic decline occurred and Air France was no where near as nimble as Delta in constraining capacity. (news reports at that time reflected the stress Air France and Delta had maintaining their liason amoureuse)
Things are changing and Delta's nimble. The British economy is rebounding well and we just added a 7ER flight from Seattle to Heathrow.
As I understand it, the VA JV (which is supposed to be live by 1/1/14) is not going to be rolled into our current transatlantic JV. If this continues to be the case then it is probably better for us than adding Virgin to our share. I would argue we are splitting the Atlantic; this is not the "English Channel Joint Venture."
Also, Delta said they are not going to merge numbers in any way with Virgin. So we will be able to track the results of that operation transparently on Delta's reports. We here in the bleachers can see that game being played out. The Seattle flight is a win.
Also, we have hit our metrics ... time for a Widebody acquisition ... JMHO.
Food for thought:
On the surface that sounds like an amazing idea, but think of this.....
We have been overstaffed the entire time we have been in the three year measurement period since AZ jointed the NAJV, correct? We have been very overstaffed on many WB jets; company decision. The 330, 744, and 777 have been over staffed to the point of MD's. The ER has just seen over 100 FO seats removed because they are so far over staffed from the operational formula. I am sure we all agree on this.
I would venture to bet, that if you used a staffing formula for your non-complinace you would realize that we would have been well above the extra staffing needed to staff the 7 333's from DTW to AMS that it would take to be in compliance.
Now I know you are going to retort that it has to be for staffing on jets that fly in the JV, but this summer all of them are. We have 777's to AMS, and 330's all over the place. I even think there is a 744 doing Euro service this summer.
Point is that we have probably been adequately staffed for your suggestion the last few years given the level of over staffing that we have experienced. If that was your financial quid, then the company already paid, eh?