Airline Pilot Central Forums - Townhall-April 1st Takeaways

First, the positives:

1) Ed Bastian seems to understand when revenue will truly be back.

Once people are vaccinated. Or once highly effective treatments are developed.

Sure, some people will return to flying after the virus peaks, but most will not. Flying is not just gonna magically return once the curve is flattened. Our entire industry is in the hands of scientists and doctors right now. The hospitals where clinical trials are happening and the labs at pharmaceutical company’s are where Delta’s profit/losses will be decided going forward. Most of our lives, we believed that how safe we fly, how well we serve, where we fly, for how much, and how we make investments......those are the things that controlled our bottom line. The fact is, that those things now make only a small difference.

We have to know when to begin the race to recovery, and Ed seems to understand it.

2) Delta is executing a PHENOMENAL game plan for reducing non-contract employee costs. On October 1st, Delta is going to take drastic measures to lower non-con payroll, without any regard to what happens between now and then. Their focus is on saving as much money as possible NOW. They are succeeding in so many ways.

A) Delta lobbied their butts off for the $5.2B payroll grant, and lobbied to have most of the draconian strings attached to the LOANS, not the grants. They are working hard to not need the loans. They succeeded in securing these funds which are based on the payroll from last summer, which was the largest payroll period in Delta’s history. Very smart lobbying. That is a magnitude more money than they will need to cover employees this summer.

B) So far, the concerted effort to re-direct employees about why Delta received the payroll grant is working. They are explaining the 5.2B payment they will receive on Friday, in terms of how long that money will last, not how long the PAYROLL grant will cover PAYROLL. If Delta had petitioned Congress for a grant to pay for jetway leases and airplanes, they would have received $0. They leveraged labor, in their negotiations with Congress, and it worked. It is clear from these town halls that they DO NOT what to hamper their efforts to persuade employees into taking leaves by explaining exactly what that money was intended for. With executive pay and management pay slashed, hours reduced 25% for front line employees, 30,000 employees taking leaves, April rebid, every pilot making minimum pay, and elimination of overtime, Delta’s payroll has to be down AT LEAST 40% from last year. The payroll grant should cover payroll for 8-9 months. However, Ed today explained to the audience that the money would only last Delta 60 days. (I don’t know how that’s accurate in any scenario, more on that later) In summary, Delta lobbied for the money and is being very smart by not letting it interfere in their efforts to have non-cons take leaves. Does Delta need to preserve cash to make it out with as healthy of a balance sheet as possible? Yes. They are killing it so far.

C) There is a reason Delta has fought tooth and nail to keep unions off the property. It costs them a premium in the good times, but in the bad times it gives them a huge advantage over the competition. This is a slot machine that over time they put quarters into, and when their mortgage came due and they ran out of money, they pulled that handle and redeemed all the goodwill they’d built up. Delta cleverly had Congress limit “pay rates”, not pay hours. Last week they pulled that handle by reducing pay hours by 25% for non-cons and American and United are now looking over at Delta in envy, as the coins are falling, lights flashing, and sirens at full steam. GOTTCHA!
Meanwhile, by the looks of the comments on today’s Townhall, non-cons are just now beginning to understand. As the few comments such as, “Will I be furloughed when I come back from leave?” “Are my HSA rewards gone?” and “How can American afford to pay their flight attendants 50hour SILs?” are being drowned out by comments such as, “Delta Strong!”, “Bastian for President!”, “What is the CARES Act?”, and “I want that shirt!”
Keeping unions off the property and showering employees with praise and “goodies”, is now an obvious complete success. Congrats to management. Smartest team around.

3) But by far the smartest move Delta has made, is to get the CARES Act approved and then just absolutely UNLOAD their employees onto the state unemployment rolls. It cannot be overstated how epic this is. They get 100% payroll recovery from Congress and then set up a well oiled machine to help non-cons get the paperwork in quickly and efficiently. Most states will be paying enough unemployment per month to make the vast majority of these employees on leave whole. This is having your cake and eating it too. Very few win-wins in this world. We are witnessing one right now. Of course, when the $600/week federal unemployment kicker expires at the end of July, most employees will return, temporarily until October 1st when the real hammer hits. Super smart move, and it’s obvious that word of how much money unemployment is paying right now spread like WILDFIRE over the past 2 weeks, as the number of leaves experienced quicker exponential growth than Covid-19.

Those were the positives, next post about the not so great things from today. This management team has bagged a couple of impressive wins in the past few weeks. Give credit, where credit is due.