Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
First, you assume that Arnie will be doing it. No decision has been made as we have no hiring dept for pilots!
As for the rest, your dots look like my dot connecting, and my dots have a few extra dots added in to come to a conclusion.
I like where your dots are leading. I agree that a 7% YOY increase in the summer is not staffing neutral and if we were to try and run this airline without any new pilots, we would be canceling flights due to no crews. There are only so many IA's a reserve pilot can do, there are only so many GS that a line holder can do. All I can say is bid the junior jet and make a ton of coin!
If I had to make a prediction, I see us taking on some added staffing this next year. Well, there I said it. I will not give a number as it might be too accurate!
Easy big fella...
First, we weren't staffing neutral last summer. We were way overmanned, and that overmanning wasn't in the correct categories. That is in the process of being corrected.
Second, where are the 7% increase numbers coming from? If they came from Steve Dickson's lounge chat, the words are important. Was it an increase over this summer's (2009) pilot block hours, or over the announced reduced 2010
planned block hours? The difference is substantial.
Third, as you've noted previously, the plans change weekly based on the most recent economic data. There will have to be solid indications that the improved yields airlines are seeing in their near term bookings are going to stick before hiring committments are made. Just 2 months ago many here were talking about September furloughs....
Don't drink the koolaid too much, in either direction. There are 11 747-200 that will be parked which were flying last summer. We're parking over 30 DC-9 30/40 by the end of next year, and only have 11 aircraft deliveries over that time, the vast majority backloaded. We do have some capacity in the desert that can be pulled out, but that only requires a 60 day lead time to get the heavy checks done.
I hope we hire. I expect if there aren't changes to this week's current plan we will need to. Unless there are substantial economic changes that carry through to the fall/winter 2010 months I can't see a need for truly substantial hiring.
We are getting 4% of our pay and 1% extra DC back in 6 weeks, though.
