Originally Posted by
skywatch
Reading my old post, I will admit that I must have been having a bad day. It is kind of pi&&y. You kept yours pretty civil - you deserve credit for that alone.
Ultimately, your argument on PPAS and crew costs fails because Delta compares the costs based on a block hour, not flight segment. Yes, those other carriers fly it faster, but the metric that is used to compare carrier costs is cost per block hour. They don't look at segments, flight times, city pairs, anything like that. PPAS has no impact on what the cost per hour for the crew is to operate the aircraft. It does increase the total number of block hours you will fly as your schedule, but because it would be impossible to compare total block hours between carriers (we don't all fly the same segments in the same weather) the comparison that is made is cost per block hour.
You are correct that I mistated your position and I apologize. Let me try again - I interpret your position to be that Comair failed because of poor managment and high costs/inefficiency (your example of inefficiency was PPAS) rather than because of the strike.
The strike occured during the best (worst) possible time - air travel had been booming, fares were high, every contract was better than the last. Comair struck, hurt Delta for 89 days, then came back with an injury leading contract. The flight attendants shortly follow suit, and sign another industry leading contract. And then right after that, 9/11. Air travel disapears, and it turns out Comair signed the last of the big regional (relatively speaking) contracts - from then on, the contracts would be concessionary, as airlines tried to stay alive, went into bankruptcy, etc.
That industry leading contract, coupled with the fact that Delta looked around and said "not doing that again - get us some more regionals in here" clearly caused the demise of Comair, the most expensive carrier. To blame it on bad Comair management (management that has no real athority to make schedules, pick destinations, etc.) misses the point, in my opinion.
Anyone flying for Comair at present can be forgiven for having a bad day, week, month, year, or career. I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective, and I don't think it's not valid to some degree. I don't mind anyone disagreeing with me (If I did, I wouldn't be married
), but I will work to correct inadvertent, or intentional, misrepresentations.
By the way, the Flight Attendants got their first contract some time after 9/11. If I recall correctly, it was a year to eighteen months after that date. I agree this also raised Comair's operating costs, just as the pilot contract did.
Leadership at Comair has focused exclusively on one thing during the last five years - reducing costs. While cost reduction is a very important of operating a successful business, it is not the only thing needed. Finding ways to grow the business, and grow revenue is equally important. In this area, Comair has failed miserably, and it is not due to the strike, it's due to malaise, and Delta's relegation of the President's role to that of Secretary.
To this day, I smile when I read company messages and press releases about how much money the company will save by removing aircraft from service. It's always amusing that they forget to mention how much revenue they're losing in the process, and how much their block hour costs are going to increase because there are fewer junior pilots available to work at reduced rates.
Again, my PPAS example was to illustrate how different departments within Comair started working against one another. This is just one example, and one I think is easiest for those of us here who are pilots to understand. The efficacy of PPAS is beyond my ability to calculate. I'm happy to fly using it. It helps me recover some of what was taken away during bankruptcy because of the productivity factor.
Prior to the bankruptcy, from my perspective, there was a sense of urgency among most flight crews. I remember the overzealous effort of a summer in 2005, or so, to reduce APU usage dramatically. The crews did a phenomenal job of operating with reduced APU usage despite the toll it took on passengers. I think most of us knew things were getting tough, and most of us went that extra mile to hold things together.
After the first round of concessions for growth failed, and the bankruptcy occurred, during which management under oath stated Comair was projected to earn a $50 million profit during the year they were filing bankruptcy, the "go the extra mile" effort disappeared. What was the point?
This is where effective leadership should have stepped up and worked to move the company forward. Instead, leadership continued to harp on about costs. Guess what? That ship sailed once you agreed to new labor contracts during bankruptcy. At some point, you've got to understand that you need to look elsewhere to pad your profits. Growing revenue, and marketing your strengths would be a good place to start.
Again, feel free to disagree.