Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
One look at LGA tells the analytically minded that the Companies involved aren't considering aircraft and crew utilization in their modelling.
Agreed. The best days of DCI were when CMR ran a huge out and back hub in CVG and SKYW did the same in SLC. Those were two operational powerhouses that ran very tight ships with only a few exceptions (very rare severe icing and IT meltdowns, etc). ASA didn't run nearly as good an operation at the time, but eventually came around. By the time they did though, the "spread it all around going spastic trying to mitigate a strike" strategy had already been implemented and the entire DCI operation was a downhill train wreck.
We know Delta is having a awful time staffing Endeavor. The experiment may fail on that basis alone. We know Delta wants to sell the FAA on a mentorship program to reduce the 1,500 hour ATP requirement. We know Delta has some very smart managers.
While I agree DL has some very smart managers, there are also a lot who faithfully stick to faulty B-school textbook paradigms and either cannot or will not change regardless of reality or result. Even if they are successful in some rediculous hour reduction, unless its back to the 250-300 hour range, which it won't be, it will have little to no effect. The lowest number I've heard anywhere in any context is 800 and that's only if its coupled with an insanely expensive million dollar plane glass ninja fantasy flight line training program. Shaving off a few hundred hours (while possibly increasing the training costs) will do nothing whatsoever to recruit and train future pilots.
If anything is going to happen the Endeavor pilots are going to have to reasonable and humble. A staple at Delta is better than #1 on the Endeavor list by at multiple orders of magnitude (run a spreadsheet). The last time this was attempted, it ran sideways on the politics.
Agreed. However the points you brought up WRT the political dynamics make almost any conceivable attempt at a staple a non starter. Even if a majority agreed to it, there would be an automatic sizeable minority that would use it as a vehicle to sue for arbitration. Just like last time, they would feign righteousness about "the process", especially if they had the advantage of taking the runway and reaching V1; they'd have absolutely nothing to lose and the rediculous McCaskill-Bond in their corner in an era of "relative rules" arbitrators.
Sure, we would make a compelling case about how relative should only be in tiered categories, and theirs would be at the bottom, but are you really willing to risk your career that we would come out the other side of that without any current pilots losing a single number? That's why I don't think its possible that way. Bring the planes to mainline and hire to the bottom of our list. We can give them pref interviews or even a flow through, but I don't see how we could mitigate the risks of a massive land grab by lots of "senior" pilots with nothing to lose once the decision to put them on our list has been made.