Originally Posted by
slowplay
Got it...this is a religious discussion with you about your belief system...
Delta could ignore ownership or other contractual obligations for CRJ-200's....
B717's were coming anyway....
Plan B was never going to happen....
How do you get DCI to park 218 CR2s?
Well, it’s not by acquiring new mainline jets. We acquired MD-90s and they didn’t park any jets. We acquired 739s and they didn’t park any jets. I still haven’t heard of them parking CR2s because we acquired A321s and 330s. Seems to me, the acquisition of mainline jets and DCI parking 50-seaters has nothing to do with each other.
So in keeping with that precedence, if we had announced in March of 2012 that we’ve acquired all of SWA’s Boeing 717s that we’ve been looking at since 2010, how many CR2s would DCI have willfully just parked just cuz? 0. The two had nothing to do with each other.
Seems to me the only way you get DCI to park say 218 CR2s, that you’ve contracted them to fly, is you offer them something they want… 70 CR9s.
But under the current PWA at the time and a fleet of 720 jets, how many new CR9s was DAL allowed to acquire? 0.
So how do you get the pilots to allow 70 more CR9s without having to park a single CR7/E170 and not grow mainline?
Well, call my cynical but
I don’t think you had to order 717s to make that happen.
You could offer more money. Pay for scope. And you know guys would’ve voted for it. I bet if we saw that survey, we’d see that. And that’s a different subject.
Now was there another more palatable opportune option? Well, yes. One that almost seemed like it was sent from...
So SWA in 2010 desperately wants out of the 717, the 717 is an MD product for commonality benefits, was a perfect 100 seater, would be cheap, Board loves it, could be acquired all at once to keep the price cheap and there was a possibility for a single category to save money (didn't happen of course but I do recall MD88 pilots being begged to bid it to save training costs).
At the same time you have a 50-seat fleet that's killing you with customers and costs.
So if you just could get more jumbo RJs to DCI to park 50-seaters and use the 717 to get the pilots to agree to it then look at all DAL would get (as stated by EB a month or so after we signed off on the deal):
The revenue opportunity is substantial. We’ve said any number of times the 50-seaters have been the perfect storm for us because not only is it a cost opportunity, it’s also an airplane our customers don’t particularly prefer. So as we up-gauge, and that was sitting behind the 717 strategy and that’s why they are linked at some level as well as getting some incremental two-class 76-seat RJs, we’re going to have a fairly substantial up gauge in margin improvement, cost reductions, some revenue enhancements. And from the capital efficiency standpoint, with where we were able to acquire the 717s is going to improve those returns all the more. So it was a win all the ways around.
Besides, how am I supposed to really believe that we got GK, Boeing, the Board, et. al. to risk all of this opportunity based on whether or not the dumb pilots voted in the first offer from the company on TA2012 and if they said no then oh well, lets keep those CR2s 4EVER! ?
So
use the 717s you're going to acquire to get the pilots to say yes to more jumbo RJs and use that as leverage to get rid of the 50-seaters you hate. Tri-Winning.
What say you or RonRon?