Originally Posted by
sailingfun
To be cost neutral to Delta pilots we would have to reduce our headcount by 1,400 pilots. Given 200 early outs, that means I must have missed the 1,200 furlough notices that were handed out. That would be cost neutral.
I'm not refuting your entire post but I do have to throw a flag on the field with this one.
The only thing dumber than spending big time money to commit to the long term business model of the world's largest 50 seat fleet that they couldn't staff anyway even if they were willing to fly their network with the most uncomfortable and insanely expensive seats in the industry (i.e. the mother of all empty threats) would have been to have furloughed 1200 pilots in 2012. We can barely handle the flying network gave us hiring 100 a month with all hands in the fleet on deck pushing a 100%+ oad factor (slightly exagerated but not much) as it is. Just when exactly could they have furloughed 1200 pilots only to immediately recall 1200 pilots, far, far, far under the typical 2 year "ROI" footprint for even a much smaller furlough.
So while you were only saying we were 200 fat instead of 1200, furloughing even that amount of pilots would have been a costly blunder.