TED74

I'd have thought Wall Street and any remaining shareholders would like to hear management give some confidence in their labor relationship. If they can't even fake that by discussing creative solutions, we have much to worry about.

DALMD88FO

I watched it and was underwhelmed. On the side you can see people's questions in the comments and pretty much they weren't answered but they had the caveat that they would answer them all individually if they didn't get to them. A lot of questions about reservations and call hold times and peoples inability to book a flight on Delta months out from now because they have hit the 60% cap or you can get there any more without multiple connections or an overnight in a hub. The answer was basically that's not true our system numbers are only 34%. Well that is correct if you can't sell seats and some of the routes that the government continues to make us fly only have a couple of people on them. I'd like to know how they track passengers that book away from Delta because they can't get through to someone that can help them.

mikea72580

This Townhall was a showcase of the best and brightest from Flight Ops. Not impressed. Absolutely no leadership qualities here. JL's tone of voice is irritated, he lacks any sort of compassionate straight talk, and doesn't even bother to try keeping morale up. As bad as the situation is, he has never wasted the opportunity to overplay the negatives while not even bothering to mention even the slightest piece of good news. He has such a lack of connection with pilots it's almost as if he isn't one.

RG makes no attempt to be anything other than what they pay him for, to be the bad guy.

BS is just a nice guy who's orchestrating the plan that management wants. That is to eliminate every cent of pilot payroll possible outside of PWA concessions.

If there's a bright spot it's PB. He's genuine, and smart. We can only hope he sticks around and is promoted. Closest thing to SD I've seen at Delta.

This was absolutely the least substantiative TH so far, so probably a good thing that it was also the shortest. Delta's strategy is clearly more sheepish than our competitors. They are happy to give our competition a leg up during the recovery as long as we cut the leanest now, and burn less cash than anyone else. Future bookings simply aren't available at Delta like they are with other large carriers. Passengers who want to fly Delta will have to fly other carriers in June, July, and August, because Delta is simply not gonna spool up flights until a large percentage of passengers are ready to fly. They must feel they can recapture all of this flying further down the road. But no question, they are trying to stop bleeding cash at the expense of future bookings.

The townhall also made clear a couple things:

In determining how many pilots to furlough, the date they chose was the end of 3Q2021.

We now understand what the UNA thing is about. The problem with displacing 3,000 pilots to the 717 is that each displacement has to be re-trained in inverse seniority order. Under our contract, they would have to train the most junior guy first(who they know they will furlough) before they eventually get to the guy who will not be furloughed and who will need to be training by Oct 1st when 2,500 pilots leave the system. The only way to get all this training done in time for Oct 1, is to move all of the future furloughs out on unqualified status so they can displace and immediately begin training the pilots they will actually need.

Unless I'm missing something, if they can get this training done by Oct 1st, I don't see why they can't let the vast majority of these pilots go pretty fast.

They are using every tool within the PWA to be in position to release the maximum amount on Oct 1st. Not really a surprise.

Based on the sentiment I'm feeling as each week passes, and with the markets holding so strong over the past few weeks, I really am starting to believe that Delta's models are too pessimistic. Even with no Vaccine or Treatment, Americans are simply making peace with the risk and are showing very early on that they plan to carry on with their lives with some modified behavior.

It's like the GI that just gets shipped into a combat zone. Doesn't sleep for the first week. After 5 weeks, guy has torn his sleeves off and is playing volleyball in the middle of a rice paddy. At some point, you just become numb.

Cosa Nostra

They are a joke, they don't give AF about any of us.
For the guys that might see the street, don't ever forget how these clowns engaged the pilot group.
Times will get better, and we will be due a contract in time.

shock

I was curios about all the comments regarding Delta reservations, so I called. Not only did I not get to speak to an agent or get put on a lengthy hold, but the automated message told me to try again later and then hung up on me!!! This is not a good sign for the future of our airline. Book-aways are happening NOW due to management's incompetence. I will not fund this with any concessions. Hold Fast. . .our pax want to fly Delta, but our management has other plans.

deltabound

Excellent summary, and thank you for it.

I don’t think the company could be more clear. “Smaller airline”. “7000 pilots overstaffed.” Whole fleet early retirements. Delta is going to furlough a whole lot of pilots. Thank goodness for the wording of the contract that will give many several months (at reduced pay, but still) to prepare.

Americans may be ready to open, but no business owner of any decent size will risk his business license and defy state governmental authority, even if the governments legal standing is questionable. States will try to open up when their governors let them not before. NY, CA, WA (all delta hubs) seem to have zero interest in opening anytime soon.

Delta has to deal with this awful new reality of major states opening/closing at the stroke of a pen from a governor. It’s not conducive to business stability.

exitrow

My commute had 2 88 flights a day to ATL in May that were replaced with a 175 and 717 flights for June. Nearly every 175 flight is oversold now. Several days have no seats available to fly direct. Hard to comprehend, though I should know better than trying to comprehend.

block30

yes. It appears to me it is time to start adding flights back ASAP.
EDIT: I've non revved at the number 2 spot on the standby list sweating bullets I will get on. A couple other similar examples lately too.

ChazzMMichaels

I know this has become quite the mgmt bashing thread, and I think the points are valid, but if I may I'd like to point out a couple positives I took from today. 1) They are using the time they have from the CARES act before making a final furlough decision, so if projections look better by Sept 1st, they can do another AE to add positions back. 2) They are considering summer 2022 for how to size the company, which should help whatever numbers they come up with in the end. And now I'm ready for my thrashing...

Drum

Great summary my man! Some call backs...

I don't think that is how UNA is going to work. Lots of discussion on that in another thread.

I will agree about how we are presently pooching away business. Sure hope they are not cutting too deep too fast. My feeling is they already did and are going to cut deeper. Our competition is going to catch us with our feet in cement shoes. This TH was just rehash of some already known info with a dose of FUD thrown on top. Nothing more.

Again, I was not impressed.