Originally Posted by
Lighteningspeed
I don't know about CRJ200s but DAL did announce they plan to park 100 CRJ200s from DCIs in 2010, so I don't know if XJ is also going to lose 17 CRJ200s in 2010.
IMHO, there's no chance of it.
First of all, I'm 99% sure that announcement said they were going to reduce the fleets by 100
50-seaters,
not specifically CRJ-200s. I can't find that announcemnt right now, so if someone has the time to look it up, please correct me if I'm wrong. Don't interchange the two terms. In this case, 50-seaters could (and probably will) include those 22 Freedom ERJs at CVG.
Secondly, I don't doubt that Delta would love to park a huge majority of the 200s, and only use the remaining ones for shorter flights to smaller stations. But, I don't think there's any possibility of Mesaba losing our 200s, at least in the reduction you're referring to, before 2011. The leases on those are too long for a return to be economically beneficial to Delta. They can only be reallocated, and I see no reason for them to move them to Comair (as the operating cost would go up, by comparison to Mesaba).
Also, with the current lease return timetable, we will have 86 planes (41 CRJ 900, 19 CRJ 200, and 26 SF-340) in December 2010. If we lose so many as to drop below 79 aircraft, the pilot contract becomes ammendable. Not to trivialize the possibility of an additional 70 furloughs, but we can only lose 7 more planes without some expensive consequences for Delta.
"If the Company’s fleet (consisting of all of the aircraft operated
by the Company in revenue service, including any aircraft that
are used or that could be used as a maintenance or operational
spare(s) consists of 79 or more aircraft on December 1, 2010,
this Letter of Agreement will not be subject to amendment until
June 1, 2012. If the amendable date of this Letter of
Agreement is deferred in accordance with the terms of this
paragraph, this Letter of Agreement will continue in full force
and effect until June 1, 2012, and shall renew itself without
change until each succeeding June 1 thereafter, unless written
notice of intended change is served in accordance with Section
6, Title I of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, at least ninety
(90) days but not more than one hundred eighty (180) days
prior to June 1, 2012, or any June 1 thereafter."
That would be a huge cost for Delta. They're not going to give us the opportunity to get anything more contractually than what we have now. For example, right now our FO payrates are based on the 2004 rate when our fleet was primarily turboprops. Current payrates for "jet" airlines are reasonably higher, especially considering our work rules (100% cancellation pay, 150% pay for open time, minimum day, etc.). Management's favorite term in any negotiation seems to be "industry average", which for this example, works against them.