Originally Posted by
DelDah Capt
I suspect that Delta would grudgingly accept this deal and divest the 16 slots. My guess is that USAirways is the one who's really going to scuttle it and frankly, I can't blame them since they're losing 33% of what they originally bargained for. Unfortunately, it takes two to tango and we are likely to put up a united front with LCC to try and strong arm a better deal. Thank goodness this industry was 'Deregulated' 30 years ago.
With that said, a loss of this deal represents a lot of flying that's not going to happen. I don't think it means the 'F' word as the summer will be busy enough, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some large displacements on the next bid. Unfortunately, the continued loss of DC9s and the loss of this NYC flying means a lot of extra bodies on narrowbody aircraft and I don't know where those people go.
Let me clarify. I am not talking furloughs at all. We are in a growth phase.
We WILL be over staffed if they drop all of the planned LGA flying. Probably not going to happen. They want to be the leader in NYC and even with the slot swap as the DOT is suggesting leaves us as the leader by a long shot.
What it means for staffing is:
1) Do none of it, we are over staffed by a few hundred pilots, but that allows them to staff the international uptick. Still good for us.
2) Do what is suggested and we still are slightly over staffed, but no where near the level to suggest furloughs.
In the end the plan will have to change again. Like I stated, the deal took the cards too a few aces, and wants us to play it a little differently. How DAL responds will be played out in the next few weeks.
They are talking about the 2010 Flight Plan this week and it appears fairly robust. Here to hoping things go as planned this year.
As for JAL. It would have been great long term, but would have been a drain financially for the next few years. Short term I bet we see a lot of growth.
This talk of WARN letters makes sense if DAL wanted to get ugly and destroy all of the goodwill it has created over the last few years. Dumb IMO but anything is possible I guess.