Originally Posted by
NuGuy
Heyas,
Interesting to note that the current guidance is no new aircraft. A few used MD-90s. Dust off a few birds from the desert.
How many pilot seats did we lose after the merger?
No new metal = no new pilots seats = Hiring for attrition only. Since we have parked a net 60 aircraft, plus a smidge of retirements, plus a smattering of "new" or reactivated airplanes, I wouldn't be surprised to see the number of around 11,000 pilots as the figure we'll see as the new "normal"
With the large RJs effectively owning our small narrowbody lift, and Alaska in growth mode for the west coast, I'd say that stagnation will be here to stay, at least for the next couple years.
Why don't we enter the "no spin zone", Nu?
At the merger there were 768 mainline aircraft. Now there are 726. That reduction happened over the worst airline recession in recent memory. If you look at the last few SEC reports, management has contracted to add 21 more MD-90's, 12 757's, 7 767-300 and 2 767-300 ER's back to the mainline fleet. They're also looking at purchasing a bunch more MD-90's. So they've got 42 + aircraft coming into the fleet over the next year or so. To be fair, we'll also lose 7 DC-9's. Paltry? I guess you've got shiny jet syndrome.
As to the large RJ's owning our narrowbody lift, the 10-Q has a different answer. DCI domestic ASM's decreased from 23.6% of total domestic ASM's in 2009 to 21.6% of total domestic ASM's in the same period of 2010. The number of departures, block hours, and airframes has gone down dramatically too. DCI had 715 aircraft last year. Now they've got 642, and that's before the scheduled reduction of 52 aircraft at CMR and 32 at Mesaba over the next two years.
With the numbers posted above, I'd say your view of "stagnation here to stay" is wrong.