What playbook is DL running?
 

Ok, finished a screwed up 5-day that likely runs par with all. Cancellations, day sits, schedule changes, fewer legs, FA’s saying we need to “help” the company, yadayada. Interesting conversation btw... FA’s saying a leave and unemployment pays more, so they are all in. Huh? Others citing other carriers and saying “we need AFA”. It seems to be seniority linear.

What are we doing? SIL’s save money, no- not doing them. Ok- rebid APR, similar ALV, new bid pack. Night before PCS, that’s all gone- here’s a new bid pack in OT. Ok, weird times, I’ll play. Swap out of all trips cancelled into the “new trips”. NOOP, we don’t like those either. You want to swap or move reserve days? Nope, need more than a third of the base to be on reserve to do it! What?

So now everyone is 23k to staff? At ALV, and in many cases much higher? With a 70% flying reduction. I can understand the mgmt viewpoint of keeping an FA Union drive in the weeds, but at what cost? The FA’s now see other airlines getting SIL’s for FA’s and pilots at full pay rates.

Meanwhile, we are in a complete scheduling meltdown into 23k to cover and short term coverage in GS. Got a RR last night to fly a leg and DH back, CA got a GS (by calling in well, when not well- whole other topic). My original CA just did a double DH. Literally the definition of burning cash.

Are we literally just going to NOT take our heads out of the weeds, when Bob says we are 50% (7000) over staffed, and vast majority of fleets parked, to see we are burning cash to keep the dumpster HOT? Can we not look forward into short term (30-90 days) and longer (120-180 days] into where we “need” to be?

Can we not cancel flights within 6 hours? Can we not identify rotations completely jacked up at signin?

We can plan to “concur the world”, in mgmt speak, but we can’t run a RELIABLE schedule within 48 hours? Wasn’t long ago, “we are prepared to whether anything” read the 10-k.

What are we doing? Other carriers are just now trimming schedules over the last few days. We were the first ones going to a “park plan” and “draconian cuts” 2 weeks ago. The pilots (MEC) gave mgmt a full rebid. That was relief on more than just a few hours of ALV. I had a 4/5 day awarded on round 2(can’t remember the pairing- swapped out most of my line) that showed 7 legs in a day and none of them lined up, didn’t bid it, but was awarded. Bid pack #2 was a disaster, and useless. The company got a lower ALV, then published more trips, many still don’t work. Now we all get 23k, with 70% less flying. End game, more costs.

So I let out my rant, thanks for listening (you read it in your head), but what I the want heard is the mindset. Pilots, myself included, seem firm on “full pay to the last day”, the company has SIL’s, the MEC has offered many other options (per MEC chair comm) -100% supporting- and the company cries poor with a $5.6B grant available.

We are cutting every cost. No big water bottles, no catering, no BS- these are costs. Hell, ATL A27 gym now doesn’t have towels, because of cost. Aka- it’s now “unstaffed”.

Is DL really thinking they won’t take the grant for strings attached in exec comp and burn backs? Dividends, in normal times are understood- like PS- but buybacks never seem to work beyond fueling the dumpster fire when the air hits the match. We are at the point where we see if mgmt and the board really stands by the “employees” or themselves.

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why DL is trying for concessions instead of options to lessen the blow. The point of this thread is for one reason- what is DL THINKING to accomplish with animosity in the ranks from the CEO, and what they think will be possible by -basically- ticking off everyone, that they claim is “based on employees” Efforts. The grant I is 6 months of wages in the year we made the most profit of any airline, ever. Heck- we made a “Thank You” airplane fly around. Why is everyone else working differently than we are at the moment? I’m completely perplexed.

Nothing of substance to add from a long day of an early arse commute coupled with an eventual reroute that was just silly. RR pay for me though so an extra sip of whiskey is warranted.

Otherwise I concur, what the crap are we are doing? For a supposedly visionary management team we can’t see two feet ahead of our own shadow right now.

If the company was serious about saving money, they’d put most (if not all) pilots on reserve. I’m not suggesting people would like it, and I don’t know if there are contractual limitations preventing the company from doing so. But at ALV-2 and no assigned trips to pay protect, they would give themselves increased flexibility from a scheduling standpoint to not string all this crap together and call it a rotation. I realize that 23K is pretty much like functional reserve, but it’s not quite as efficient, and the company is still burning up premium pay as well when they can’t cover. I believe that increasing the number of reserves and decreasing regular lines would help them out in the near term until they get scheduling under control.

They can't just do that. It's a violation of the contract in many areas.

If they were serious, they would have shut down a majority of flights weeks ago.

From a staffing point of view, is there a rise in sick calls because people say this isn’t worth it? Go into work, get a potentially serious sickness pass it onto their family and then be furloughed in a few months.

Hmm. What if they offered a 55-hr SIL to the pilot group? That would be cheaper than putting people on an ALV-2 schedule.

Nawwwww! That would be silly.

At the moment they are stuck in today and next day crisis management. Hopefully someone is looking out ahead for a little longer range planning.

Crew tracking and scheduling are battling the closest fire and moving on to the next. That only works for so long before things become untenable. At this point I think things are so screwed up that the gears are starting to seize up.

No sick look back currently and the bank replenishes June 1. I’d say sick calls are likely through the roof.

I bet those sick calls would have no trouble with sitting at home on a SIL though.

I bet you’d be wrong. Probably would barely move the sick call peg.