Perspective....
 

The Company has said we are burning thru approximately $5 billion a quarter...at least that’s what JL has indicated. If that continued for a year it would be $20 billion.

For perspective, according to the Pilot Contract History put out by Dalpa, LOA 46 saved the Company approximately $1 billion per year.....and we know how draconian those cuts were.

Conclusion........there is now way anything we give is going to impact what happens to Delta by more than a month or two.....and that’s being generous.

Denny

Like 9-11 we're along for the ride.

They din't ask us for operational/financial/social advice in the past & they won't in the future.

You can guarantee that they will do whatever they can to cut our costs. With time they will realize how foolish they appear by not taking retirement & SIL actions like our peers at AA & UAL. Hopefully the speculation on FA leaves & how it relates to our SILs/retirement is true...

With retirement attrition what it is now, I don’t see a retirement package being advantageous. They can just pay minimum line value and have the workforce to immediately move into the market come recovery time or they can pay roughly the same amount and have a large one time training churn that will probably not be in time for quick movement back into the global market.

Considering we are fat on widebody pilots for the next few years, an early-out would mitigate some of the excess A's. The B's would still need to go to the schoolhouse.

The cost of each early-out has to be compared to the cost of several training events that each displacement would create.

Fat widebody pilots?

Isnt that redundant?

Exactly. There is a cost-benefit number that balances training with early retirement and parking hundreds of airplanes. At American it was about 630 pilots. If Delta is truly “leaving no stone unturned” to save money we will have an early retirement program for pilots too. It will be more publicly palatable when one is announced for the other employees.

I see what you did there.

Smart (from management's perspective) would be a huge displacement with generous reinstatement rights. This isn't a one day 9/11 event with security protocols we understand.

Might be cheaper to bench for a while.

I'd have to grab my lawyer and the PWA, but I imagine a June bid with a worst-case scenario:

1) Bare bones widebody staffing.
2) Slightly smaller 320/73N fleet.
3) 88's/90/s/757's and ER's gone.
4) Some expensive 717's gone.
5) 220's are here to stay for the long-term

In light of this I would expect a massive displacement bid with the ability (need my lawyer here) to lessen the displacements within a year if things aren't so dire. I'm sure they can simply publish other AE's during that year to reinstate.

I think Ed is right: it's going to take a vaccine before a lot of people are willing to cram themselves into an airplane (or train, subway, bus, monorail, club, concert hall, stadium ...) And a vaccine is 12-18 months away.

I think we should be following LH's lead and carrying cargo in the cabin.