Cross country turns will cause no reduction in pilot jobs at Delta. Again pilot jobs are based on block hours. If you can have all your pilots fly 80 hours in 10 days or 80 hours in 16 days the manning required is the same. In fact if you build a lot of turns it tends to make your 3 and 4 day rotations less efficient and can lead to more credit time which increases pilot jobs. Even if allowed it might be the company chooses not to build a lot of turns because of that credit increase. It can be difficult to get a 4 day trip up to the 1 for 3.5 duty rig without a couple of long legs. I once helped try and build better rotations and the key was getting the long legs otherwise credit kicks in.
There will be a reduction in pilots needed on some turns to the Caribbean if we make the contractual changes to allow it. Since we currently require the company to double crew those flights and FAR's only require a relief pilot I am not sure we will change things. If we do it will be more then offset by all the Europe flying going to 3 man crews.