Originally Posted by alfaromeo

I can't imagine a furlough of anything less than 500-1000 pilots as having any value to management. As soon as they furlough 1 pilot they have to start pulling seats out of the 76 seat airplanes, after they get a little up the list they have to pull out seats from all of the 76 seat airplanes. If they are going to have to rip out seats from jets, it better be for a really big reason.

In settling the 76 seat grievance settlement, Delta accepted the union's view of allowed 76 seat aircraft, which further limits their ability to reduce the mainline fleet without pulling down smaller airplanes. (see junior folks, you may not have been "sold out" like you originally claimed, this settlement provides important protections for you)

Delta has about 10,500 active line pilots now (excluding sick, mil leave, etc.) and 100 pilots are 1% of that. The TLV range is allowed to go from 74-79 which allows them to vary staffing by 6-7% just by going up or down that range. In the short term, they can vary staffing by 12-13% by going up or down the ALV range (72-82).

This system was designed to flex up and down to accommodate short term changes to block hours. It only makes sense to furlough if they are going to drastically reduce the entire system footprint for a long period of time. Just my $0.02.