Alright, since we're talking block hours I wanted to go back to this post from a few days ago (mind you it's discussing the 76-seater problem and not NRT) but that ain't no thing:
Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
Block hours were used because they drive pilot staffing and not fleet size. Delta has a ton of fully depreciated aircraft with no ownership costs. They could artificially inflate the fleet size and not fly those aircraft very much. Block hours = pilot jobs. Fleet size = nothing.
Okay, here's a question about that ^^
Say you have 50 763ERs flying 1 leg per day that's 8.1 +/- 0 hours per day, how many pilots do you by rule need flying the jets per day?
8.1 > 8.0, so you need 3 pilots per jet x 50 jets = 150 pilots.
Now let's increase the block hours by a random number like 46.914% or 47%. It'd be an increase of 69,000 block hours per year, 190 per day and it works out to be 11.9 +/- 0 hours per day/leg/crew. How many pilots do you need?
11.9 > 8 but < 12, you need 3 pilots per jet x 50 jets = 150 pilots.
So a 47% increase in block hours per day and per year yields... 0 additional pilots needed.
Okay, how about this, how about add 1 additional jet, to the fleet of 50, flying 8.1 +/- 0 hours per year. How many pilots do you need at a minimum now?
8.1 > 8, 3 pilots per jet x 51 jets = 153 pilots.
So while a 47% increase in block hours gave you a 0 increase in pilots required,
1 jet gave you an increase of 2%. If it was Delta staffing a 765, it'd be like 25 pilots per jet. 1 jet matters.
But all of a sudden the 2012 crowd is smarter than the 2008 crowd and block hour ratios trumps fleet count. Unless you're trying to get me to vote yes on TA 2012, then 88 717s = 1000-1400 pilot jobs no matter how many block hours they fly but at the same time fleet counts don't matter just block hours, please standby as we twist ourselves into a
HND ++++