No need to worry — the changes are already in motion. Currently, our experienced Trackers, many of whom do an excellent job, are being forced to reinterview for their roles as part of the newly merged Scheduling and Tracking department. In this new setup, they’ll be using a poorly performing software system to reroute crews — a system that’s already showing negative impacts on operational performance and the customer experience.

All of this is being done under the guise of cost containment. The unfortunate truth is that the people using the system mostly just know how to push buttons — they can’t recognize how badly it’s actually performing. That’s what happens when real operational experience is replaced with 22-year-olds holding analytics degrees and no understanding of how an airline truly works.

We’re all paying for it. Customers — especially those of us in the OCC — are left cleaning up the mess created by these misguided decisions. The irony? This is all supposedly aimed at controlling pilot costs, yet no one from that group seems concerned with the cascading expenses these choices are creating downline. The rest of us, who do understand those consequences, are left trying to keep things running.

Some recent examples of this system’s "wins" include assigning multiple crew rotations to the same trips, pulling crew members from flights scheduled to depart within 20 minutes, and leaving flights uncovered until 5 to 10 minutes before departure — only then alerting others to scramble.

And leading this charge? A relatively new addition to Delta, backed by a team of yes-men — most of whom either have no operational experience or didn’t perform well when they did. Now, they’re in charge. The result is a bloated, top-heavy structure that's pushing decisions disconnected from operational realities.

It’s disheartening. It’s happening. And aside from the yes-men, no one supports it.