Originally Posted by
TOGA LK
Didn't Western have 1,400 pilots at LAX alone? Who took over that lift? What part of our contract allowed us to dismantle an entire coast and outsource it?
Nice rant. You might want to fact check though.
In October, 1986 when the merger was announced, Western had a total pilot force of about 1500 spread through SLC, SEA, SFO, and LAX. I'm pretty sure DEN and MSP were already closed. Delta grew the LAX operation in the early 90's and got to about 200 departures peak per day from all 5 LAX basin airports, but in my memory the base never got over 1000 pilots. We started shrinking LAX in the mid to late 90's (737 base went away first around 1996?), and as we closed the failed PDX/LAX west coast international MD-11/L15 experiment LAX got hammered. We pulled out of all the Mexican beach markets (ACA, IXT, MZT, PVR), ended seasonal ANC and FAI, and Canadian Open Skies killed YVR, YYC and YEG. We went down to about 70 departures per day from only 3 basin airports.
All that happened
before any code share with Alaska. The codeshare didn't become a "big deal" until after the merger.
BTW, last year I posted pax numbers from LAX basin since the mid 90's. Delta was growing over the last couple of years. ALA was shrinking/consolidating. So with the codeshare Delta grew...
The facts don't support your rant.
btw, USAir used to be #1 in LAX. Then UAL was #1. DAL tried it for a while. SWA became top dog for a brief period. AMR tried it once before and as AAL appears to be trying again. It's a tough geographic location to be a true "hub."