Bingo. Not only that, but at a certain point, training becomes a fixed (albeit high fixed) cost. Therefore, a flow can actually save a company money because a flow can be viewed as a quantifiable benefit for a new pilot joining the workforce at Mesaba or Compass. Because the new hire perceives this as value, they can delay other costly enticements such as health care improvements, salary improvements, and work rule improvements. Basically, training costs are not linear: When you have one person, it costs $50,000 per person to put them through class; When you have five, it costs $15,000; When you have 10, it costs $9,000. Greater cost, yes, but marginally. So if you're going to run a class at Mesaba or Compass anyway, it pays to put as many people through as possible to help keep the per-head cost down. Of course, all of these benefits are on top of the benefit of taking a $100 an hour captain and replacing them with an $80 an hour captain ($20k savings), etc.

I'll use Mesaba as an example, because I believe their pilots have, on average, more longevity. You take 9 pilots from Mesaba. This results in $100k in training costs to replace these people at the bottom, but if you take into account, let's say, a $10 per hour difference in pay, that gives you $90k per year in savings. Now that you're putting through a class of 9 people, you might as well double that to 18 people, which results in a training cost of $150,000. Despite $150k being greater than $100k, you are now saving $180k a year (savings which are reoccurring). This all means that the more people you bring, especially at a senior airline, the more money you save.

Believe it or not, accountants do actually think this way (and for once, I would agree with them). Do I think more people will flow? Who knows, but I will say that this is the reason why I wouldn't be surprised to see more people flow up than just the guaranteed numbers.

 

Hi!

I'm sure some DAL guys have buddies at Compass that they would like to help get to DAL.

cliff
LFW

 

Yes, Compass will interview in 3 weeks from now. The interview will be in Atlanta, and will resemble the Delta interview very closely. Got this information straight from the person who will do the interviews.

First class at Delta in August, Compass flow up to 100.... min 60 or so...
All depends on guys coming back to Delta. (Furloughed)

 

I heard this too. It will be the full 5 part interview. Compass is also losing people to Virgin America, and Air Tran right now. They will really have to ramp up hiring.

 

5 part? Thank God I only had to do 4 parts back when.

 

We were told the same thing today in recurrent. No restrictins the order of priority for delta hiring is as follows per mec meeting between moak and dci carrier mecs.

1) compass 20
2) mesaba 9
3) other dci carriers (asa, pinnacle, etc. Notice comair is missing apparently there was the mntion by the comair mec that they have no pilot F'ing pilots that want to fly at delta) I had no idea things were this bad between the comair and delta mec's.
4) off the street hiring... all pilots at dci carriers will be interviewed based on qualifications, regardless of being at a dci carrier..


From the horses mouth

 

Yeah, that's what I figured. That's good news bro. Does DAL hire on the order you listed? ie, after 29 pilots flowingthru from CZ and XJ, does DAL hire pilots from other DCI carriers before hiring pilots from other carriers? I thought after the flowthru numbers are met, DAL will hire any pilots, regardless of whether they fly for DCI or not, from off the street.

One thing I need to add is if DAL skips a class in one month, the next two classes has to be filed by XJ pilots making the XJ number 18 that month.

 

I dont know about that...... I knew quite a few that wanted to jump ship to delta

 

ok ill bite, what are the 5 parts to the Delta interview?

 

Not sure what the 5th part is.... I thought it was HR, technical question test, personality test and the light pen test.