TO: Comair Pilots
FROM: Dave Soaper, senior vice president of Aircraft Operations
RE: Block-hour reduction follow-up
I wanted to provide a follow-up to the memo from President John Selvaggio earlier this month.
As John communicated, fuel cost pressure is driving a reduction in domestic capacity, which will
affect all Delta Connection carriers, including Comair. As a result, up to 14 aircraft will be
coming out of the operation. We will fly 10-15 percent fewer scheduled block hours in 2008.
We continue to work closely with Delta to ensure that we are doing everything we can to make
this decrease in block hours as seamless as possible to our crews. Our current staffing plan
indicates we will be able to achieve any necessary crew reductions through drops, line-value
reductions and attrition.
Our short-term strategy is to work with Delta to adjust the proposed block-hour reductions so that
they can be phased out over a longer period, to the extent possible. For example, we have
successfully re-worked the schedule from March through May, slowing the reduction in each of
these months. This more gradual reduction allows us to minimize the potential staffing impact by
allowing attrition to mitigate the overage. By contrast, a significant reduction in any single month
could put us in an overstaffed situation where we would have to consider furloughs. Ultimately,
we still achieve the full block-hour reduction required, just not as quickly.
Our long-term strategy is to continue to look for opportunities to grow — both within and outside
the Delta network. More than likely, growth at this time would come in the form of taking over
flying from another carrier. To be successful at this, we must be prepared to react to flying
opportunities on short notice and we must maintain a sound operation. For these reasons, we are
continuing to upgrade and hire to backfill some attrition but also to be poised to accept new flying
on a moment’s notice. We recently released a vacancy bid, and beginning in February, we expect
to resume hiring at up to eight new hires a month.
Thank you for your continued focus on safety and running a quality operation. We will continue
to update you regarding our strategy and staffing situation as we have new information to share.