Originally Posted by sailingfun

Originally Posted by Roadkill
We were overmanned because
1. pilots are flying more hours than they used to for one reason or another, and we don't have a bow wave.

Bow wave went away 8 years ago. I do agree however it was a great thing. That was why Delta pilots averaged under 40 block hours a month back then.


2. we allowed summer months to be changed to 30 days from 31 giving an instant 3.3% productivity gain. 3.3% of 11000 pilots = 363 pilots

Not totally correct. The days removed did not go away. They went into other months. It was however a improvement for the company.

3. we allowed reserves to be used to ALV+15 when needed, allowing a planned worst-case scheduling reserves to be 99 hrs instead of 68 hrs, an increased POTENTIAL use of existing reserves of 45% (31 hours more), which assuming 20% of pilot list as reserves or 2000 pilots *45% = 900 pilots worth (worst case) of reserves suddenly available IF NEEDED, allowing them to PLAN/staff at a much lower level than before. Essentially staff for winter, and be able to increase use for summer now. Say 500 pilots worth.

Your understanding of what a reserve could fly to is incorrect. There was no 68 hour max. The max was the ALV in the prior contract. ALV15 was pushed by the company to allow them to cover the long international trips and the 4 and 5 day domestic trips with reserves. Some international trips could never be assigned to a reserve pilot. In the last half of the month many domestic trips could not be assigned to a reserve pilot. DALPA recognized that ALV15 would reduce jobs so demanded and received offsets to mitigate the job loss. Those included reserves being full at a lower value and counting known absences. The later was huge!
4. We allowed various efficiency "gains" to be put in place that result in maybe QOL improvements for someone, but also result in less pilots needed. Such as vacation any.

We also increased vacation pay which offsets the above if in fact it had any effect.
5. We continuously allowed PBS improvements which let the company schedule pilots / block hours on a leaner ratio.

Every PBS improvement that I know of was requested by pilots. Management has not asked for the changes. In fact each set of changes cost them money in reprogramming costs. I don't see where they decreased manning for the company.
6. Delta collected data on flighttime, block hours, delays etc. that allowed tighter block hours and reduced block hours by running a more efficient operation. What does that have to do with the contract?
7. We sped up our ops via things like TCIFAST and latency at puchback allowing block times to be shaved by 1-2 min here and there for a more efficient op.

What do these have to do with the contract? Are you saying that management should be faulted for running a good airline or that DALPA should try and prevent them from running a good airline?
8. Delta got better and better at scheduling, hiring smarter and better folks to do analysis to reduce such things as credit time and trip/duty rig ratios, making trips more efficient (from a pay standpoint), making a more efficient operation.

Credit time is actually higher now then in the mid 2000's. This is in part because some of our expanded operations generate lots of credit. Think Narita and Africa

Now, all these things will be called "wins" for us, and they may be from some perspectives, but they all did cause some smaller number of pilots to be needed for the same flying.

I grow so weary of the same usual suspects telling us how much things are growing, pointing to the same bogusly manipulated stats and sub-group numbers, while we continue to slide backwards in buying power and QOL at the bottom. Yes, there are indeed things to look forward to and things are looking better than they have for some years... but with 70 unfilled ERB positions, and the same or displacements for the last several AEs, there is NO interpretation of the data you're going to be able to show me that isn't going to convince me that my % in category isn't 20% less than it was a few years ago, or that I haven't moved backwards or sat still every AE for years.

Excellent news for guys moving up to Capt, truly! I just wish all their jobs were backfilled and folks below them down to the bottom of the list moved up also.


Overall here is the reality. When the current contract was signed we had a large surplus of copilots. We were manned about right for Captains. From the start it was explained that the growth airframes would not start arriving until the fall of 2013. They are just hitting the property now. If the new contract generated anything remotely like the job loss posted on this forum there would have been massive Captain displacements. Not only has that not happened but we have added over 300 new Captains jobs before the airframes have even hit the line! Every bid since the contract was signed has been overall positive. Most have not had any displacements.
Crew resources has not changed their manning assumptions one bit since the new contract was signed. Somehow they were not informed of the thousands of pilot jobs that we lost in this contract. Perhaps you should call and let them know so they can displace 500 to a 1000 captains and post a huge furlough. Think how much money they could save.
In the end the gains and losses in pilot staffing in the last contract were very carefully mapped out. There was little disagreement between the company and the union on those numbers. The numbers have proved to be dead accurate based on the advance entitlements posted since the contract was signed period.