Originally Posted by gollum

We can learn that an 11% death rate is not good which is what they have right now.

Originally Posted by DWC CAP10 USAF

I will not talk politics in the furlough thread. I will not talk politics in the furlough thread.
I will not talk politics in the furlough thread. I will not talk politics in the furlough thread.
I will not talk politics in the furlough thread. I will not talk politics in the furlough thread.
I will not talk politics in the furlough thread. I will not talk politics in the furlough thread.
I will not talk politics in the furlough thread. I will not talk politics in the furlough thread.
I will not talk politics in the furlough thread. I will not talk politics in the furlough thread.

Now how about those furlough rumors, numbers, prognostications?

Originally Posted by TruNorth

TL;DR: Scenario 1 - 1,000 medium-risk and 1,000 high-risk furloughs; Scenario 2 - No Furloughs

So I've been spending a considerable amount of time thinking through the numbers and I figured I'd post my back-of-the-napkin math as a discussion point. For background, I'm among the most junior pilots at Delta - if there's a furlough, I'll be furloughed guaranteed. I'm already putting backups in to place and expanding my savings (and reducing my expenses) to the extent I can between now and October 1.

Anyway, on to the numbers. My primary assumption is that we will have a flying strength of 11,000 pilots for the summer of 2021. That's a loss of 3,000 pilots in the span of a single year which would be catastrophic under any other measure.

From there it follows: We have about 13,700 line-flying pilots at the moment. The remaining thousand or so are in the training department, administration, leave, or other miscellaneous non-flying status. For the summer of 2021, I'll assume the company flexes about 300 of those back to the line for the summer, giving us an overage of 3,000 pilots at the moment.

However, by August of 2021 (WidgetSeniority.com) we'll have 830 mandatory retirements. The few previous years have had age 65 retirements at around 70-80% of retirements, so let's say that total retirements from now through the end of the summer flying season 2021 is around 1,000 pilots.

Assuming the summer 2021 pilots won't be furloughed in October, that leaves an actual overage around 2,000 pilots. Those are the truly at risk of furlough under this scenario.

But let's break that down a little further. Assuming no additional recovery in flying strength by summer of 2022 (that is, 11,000 flying pilots needed), we need to cover another 1,000 retirements. I'm assuming (based on nothing but an ass-pull) we can take 200 pilots/month out of furlough (about double the planned "aggressive" rate of training new-hires). If you want that 1,000 available for summer 2022, you need them out of training by May 2022. This means your last classes for that have to start by February 2022, and your first classes need to start by October 2021 at the latest. This means a furlough for those 1,000 pilots from 12-17 months in duration, which may or may not make financial sense based on training costs, etc. (the commonly given 18-24 month figure comes in to play here, though of course every furlough is different).

In that case, you have 1,000 medium-risk pilots and 1,000 high-risk pilots for furloughs. Again, assuming no additional recovery in flying strength by summer of 2023, you'll need to pull those last 1,000 out of furlough to cover retirements along the same timeline as the first 1,000 (Oct '22-Feb '23). This leaves a furlough duration of 24-29 months for the most junior 1,000 pilots.

However - this guesswork makes several overly-conservative assumptions, IMO. Firstly, it takes no account for any ERP, SILs, PLOAs, KLOAs, longer-term MIL leave, or any other cost-reducing measures that may be implemented. Second, it allows for no recovery in flying strength beyond 11,000. And third, it assumes all furloughed pilots accept reinstatement, and that historically isn't true.

So let's run the numbers on a more "optimistic" scenario. This one will see the same 11,000 flying pilots for summer 2021, but recovery to 12,000 flying pilots by summer 2022 (still 2,000 pilots short from the plan for summer 2020).

The setup is the same - retirements to cover between now and the end of summer flying 2021 leaves us an overage of about 2,000 pilots. In this scenario, though, the company is still dealing with the fallout from the massive surplus bid that we're apparently about to see and, combined with recall training, can't flex any of the (assumed in the previous scenario) 300 non-flying pilots out to the line. This brings us to an overage of 1,700 pilots (13,700 flying pilots - 11,000 needed - 1,000 retirements = 1,700).

Planning on international flying to be the slowest to recover, the upcoming surplus bid (in this hypothetical) disproportionately falls on senior wide-body categories. Knowing the crazy amount of ripple-effect training that displacing wide-body pilots causes, the company offers a respectable ERP, convincing 700 pilots to take it.

We now only have 1,000 pilots at risk of furlough, and a need to cover 2,000 additional flying jobs between the summer of 2021 and 2022 (1,000 retirements + 1,000 jobs recovered). This means we need to return all of those furloughed pilots and hire 1,000 new pilots before summer 2022.

I'm going to assume 900/1,000 accept recall (I'm not sure of the historical number), so you need to hire 1,100 pilots. I would guess new hires take a bit longer to get through the training process, so assume you can only do 150/month (still faster than the plan was for 2020), it takes a whole year to complete the training on recalls (200/month), plus hire the 1,100 (150/month). This means recalls of May - September 2021, followed by new hire classes.

This results in a furlough of 1,000 pilots for only 8-11 months. Considering the costs of furlough, the company would have to seriously weigh whether or not it would be worth it at that point. In this (admittedly) optimistic scenario, I think the use of SILs, Leaves, and other cost-saving measures between October 2020 and May 2021 could likely prevent the need to furlough. This is your zero furlough scenario.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on these scenarios. Remember, for those in the bottom third, if not more, plan on getting furloughed. If it doesn't happen, you can buy a boat or something, but if you do you'll be glad you didn't waste the 6 months the CARES act bought us.

Originally Posted by gollum

We can learn that an 11% death rate is not good which is what they have right now.

Originally Posted by GucciBoy

It’s 3.3%, which I guess you could round up to 11%. They also had no lockdown.

https://www.who.int/docs/default-sou...rsn=d1c3e800_2

Originally Posted by Mesabah

???? If this lockdown causes R0 to drop below 1, where it's trending, you don't get herd immunity at a crawl. The virus actually stops spreading until the conditions are right for R0 to rise again; A seasonal virus.

Originally Posted by WhiskeyDelta

Fair enough! But I was thinking about those hired in the month of 12/16 who may have seen this and got their hopes up. Sure, they should be doing their own diligence, but you’ve seen how many people that things on here as gospel sometimes.