MEC Brief
 

Originally Posted by MEC Brief 19-08
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December 12, 2019
19-08
The Perfect Storm: The Bomb Cyclone Returns
Last September, we published MEC Brief 19-04 Delta's Summer of 2019: The Perfect Storm, a postmortem accounting of the varied layers of operational difficulties. The article investigated the cause of last summer's problems, which led to a 100% increase in pilot overtime flying. This overtime was a record, and it was later revealed to have ultimately contributed to significantly higher labor costs in the third quarter. More important than the financial cost was the human stress incurred by pilots who stepped up to do the heavy lifting in support of flying operations. The pace was simply grueling. This was acknowledged by Flight Operations SVP Captain Jim Graham in an employee memo when he stated, "Quite frankly, we ran the operation hotter than expected this summer, and we know you felt that pressure."

On August 30, CEO Ed Bastian wrote in a memo to employees, "We want to continue hearing your feedback and ideas on what we can fix and investments that can be made." As career-long stakeholders with a keen interest in Delta's success, and knowing full well that repeating the pace of summer 2019 would be unsustainable, ALPA offered the following solutions for Delta’s operational shortcomings:
Aggressively Hire More Pilots: Our calculations determined that 1,000 pilots need to be in a training class by March 2020 to have an adequate buffer going into next summer.
More Frequent Advance Entitlements (AE): Delta operates the most extensive fleet mix of any airline in the U.S. Forecasting a 365-day AE must be pin-point accurate to avoid leaving categories unbalanced at the end of the AE conversion window. More frequent AEs will allow for the finer tuning of staffing and easier stabilization of categories.
Six weeks after the postmortem was published, Delta announced in an All Pilots Memo they planned to hire 900 pilots before the summer 2020 flying season and a total of 1,340 in 2020. Despite the numbers the Company presented in the memo, we remain deeply concerned that our pilots and the rest of the workforce will face a repeat of the demands of summer 2019.

As pilots, a critical CRM skill we perfect is the ability to recognize threats and select the appropriate mitigating strategies to neutralize them. These threats come in many different forms – from the relatively benign, such as missing meals, to the significant such as an uncontained engine failure. Just like some threats can impact any given flight, the same applies to Delta’s operational plan. We believe there are threats to Delta’s ability to begin next summer with an adequate number of pilots. These threats will undoubtedly hinder Delta’s ability to mitigate and avoid the exhausting experience of last summer.

Our Continuing Concerns
The pace has not let up. Typically, after Labor Day, Delta enters the shoulder season - a period where pilots can collectively catch their breath. That much-needed respite has not occurred this year, and the Company continues to run the operation hot - relying on overtime flying to execute its schedule.
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September 2019 saw 6,454 Green Slip periods compared to 4,040 in September 2018. October 2019 continued trending in the wrong direction with 8,172 Green Slips, which was more than 100% above last year's October number of 4,004. This November was no different with 5,854 Green Slip periods – a 40% increase from November 2018.

The historical data for Delta’s Green Slip periods goes back 30 years and all three fall months set all-time records. Overall, Delta’s streak of consecutive record Green Slip months now stretches back seven months to last May.

Manning Issues - The December 717 Bid. Poor planning for the December bids for ATL and LAX B717 pilots led to a significant staffing issue that left an unbalance of scheduled flying between the two bases. The problem became magnified when marketing added even more flying for the B717 over the coming holiday period after the bids had already closed. How will Delta solve this issue? Again, with voluntary, and most likely record-setting, pilot overtime.

The Pilot Training Pipeline. Once a pilot applicant is hired, it takes two weeks to complete the indoctrination class. Following that class, there is typically a one- to two-week homestretch before the pilot starts simulator training, which usually lasts a month. The last step is the Operational Experience (OE), which takes 10 to 14 days or more. Only when this training is complete can a pilot produce on the line.

Summer flying begins on June 1, 2020. To ensure a new hire will be ready to fly the line on that date, that pilot must be hired and in class no later than March 15. Historically, after June 1, a significant number of seniority list simulator instructors transition to line flying to help cover the additional flying. This practice makes more pilots available for line operations, but training slows due to a smaller instructor population teaching in the simulators.

Is Delta achieving its staffing goals? To reach its goal of hiring 900 pilots for the start of summer 2020, Delta will need to train an average of 184 pilots every four weeks. To have the same number of pilots on the property as the grueling summer of 2019, which represents no improvement, Delta would need to hire 600 additional pilots. That requires an average of 109 pilots every four weeks. Since the end of August, the Company has hired a total of 165 pilots, which equates to just 41 pilots every four weeks.

Line Check Pilots (LCP) Availability. Just as line pilots are excited about the movement created by retirements and the benefits that progress brings, so are Line Check Pilots. As LCPs retire from top-paying aircraft, other LCPs will leave their current positions and upgrade to larger, higher-paying aircraft. Replacing an LCP takes many months and leaves a shortage of available pilots to provide OE training. The resulting deficit of LCPs has the potential to introduce a significant bottleneck in the training pipeline.

Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt conceived the Theory of Constraints and introduced it to the world in his 1984 bestselling novel, "The Goal." The Theory of Constraints holds that every process has at least one constraint, or bottleneck, and focusing improvement efforts on that constraint is the quickest and most effective path to improved performance and profitability.

We have outlined numerous constraints that may well negatively impact the Company’s productivity and profitability. Delta has called on pilots to continue to operate at redline for seven straight months, and we have professionally and safely stepped up and answered that call. However, maintaining that pace into next summer is not a realistic or responsible approach. Pilots are not machines in a factory; we are the human beings that operate complex machines filled with hundreds of passengers – your family members and friends. Machines and pilots alike cannot be run at redline indefinitely.

Controlling costs is essential. A myopic focus on costs without considering the interconnection they have with the intricacies of the operation can have implications on many levels. To keep Delta in the position of operational excellence in the airline industry, management must act to alleviate the operational threats and constraints that have been outlined. The focus needs to be placed on restoring staffing to maintain a robust pilot group that continues to go above and beyond to be brand ambassadors. Running pilots at redline takes away the tools pilots need to properly promote our industry-leading product and complete Delta’s operational plans.

This MEC Brief is a product of the Delta MEC Communications Committee
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Air Line Pilots Association, International
ALPA - Advancing Aviation Safety and Security since 1931

Why does the MEC Admin continue to wage a war against Greenslips? I could understand if there were record Inverse Assignments and Delta was canceling flights due to staffing but to complain about voluntary flying for double pay is strange.

As far as the 717 it's a flex fleet and helping to alleviate 321 NEO delays

Delta is the biggest it's ever been in it's history. With record fleet transformation happening. On the cusp of record hiring followed by record retirements. There is and will continue to be record Greenslips.

These are great times for Delta pilots. The opportunity to build life changing wealth looks to be plentiful.

Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk

It sounds like they are concerned about that little issue of safety.

I think the massive increase in fatigue calls is the concern.

I forgot to mention, which I’m not sure why it would need to be spelled out but GSs don’t just mean voluntary flying for double pay.

GSs mean lack of staffing. Lack of staffing means no ability to drop trips and adjust schedule. Lack of staffing means high ALVs. High “optimized” ALVs means guys are working harder and getting fatigued. Lack of staffing means reroutes to cover flying that would normally be covered by a reserve. I can keep going but I certainly hope you get the point.

We took a huge hit in QoL this summer. So instead of asking why is the union waging a war against green slips, maybe we should be asking why you and the company are waging a war against our QoL?

Dear MEC,
-Bullet points would be fine.
-Pilots are smart.
-Pilots are busy.

I don’t think this is a war on green slips. Greenslip data obviously shows that time and time again the 14,000+ of us are bailing them out of a horrible staffing situation that they are in.

Then the article goes on to point out what they said they were going to do to alleviate the problem for summer 2020 vs. what they are actually doing. Accountability maybe?

This isn’t going to get better in the next five years.

Awesome post!!

Interesting when you contrast this with the last paragraph of PB’s latest fatigue reporting memo. Be careful picking up GS because you might increase your fatigue. Or is the real problem that they have become dependent on the GS but the fatigue reports are making the company look bad and has caught the eye of the FAA. (and probably some investigative journalist) Reading that memo I was anticipating the “but...” And then without fail, the last paragraph. :rolleyes:

Green slips reduce the amount of staffing needed during high demand months. If they company relies on GSs to get through during the busy months, they they don't need to increase the pilot count - less Captain positions needed, less FOs needed. Everyone get stuck at a lower rung on the ladder.