Originally Posted by Phins2right

I agree.

To add. Someone much smarter than me (maybe FTB or notEnuf?) on here said something very prescient back in late April about the lock downs/shut downs. That person said that it takes about 90 days for humans' behavior to be modified by an external event. What we have seen is that the public is not flying. No vacations, no int'l trips to see the sights in europe and Asia, no vacations to far away places. Rather, they are returning to their core. Camping, hiking, or just hanging out as a family unit again. Boat sales are the best they've been in 2 decades. Inventories are at all time low and manufacturers can not keep up with demand. Same for the used boat market. Boats are a great outlet for families to get away from the masks, crowds, lock downs etc.

Prior to this election infection we were cramming more and more people into our aircraft, we were reducing seat distances and recline. We were literally kicking customers in the head and beating them down. We have several HVCs that are neighbors, and I have my wife who is one with DAL. They were hating on the airlines for 2 years prior. We're at a crossroads.

Perhaps to help bring back people to flying we need to address some basic customer service again. Maybe look at returning a little more room in the cabin for our customers. they are not going to come back unless we make it worth their while. My hope is we don't see a fare war again, but that can certainly happen - history always repeats. Maybe we can avoid that by actually wooing our customers back to fly. Right now, they really don't have a reason, and moving further on, once we pass thru the rubicon on this thing, we'll need to be competitive to gain market again. I don't think our "revenue" premium is going to hack it in the new normal post election infection world. At least not right away. We must first get butts in seats, then we can look at that "premium" option again.

Originally Posted by sailingfun

Our seat pitch and recline are basically exactly what they were averaged across the fleets 30 years ago. Cramming more seats in is a myth of the news and what some ULCC’s have done. American opened their coach seat pitch from 31 to 34 years ago because the public said they would pay for it. They lost their ass and eventually went back to a 31 inch pitch and the press leaped all over them for cramming people in even though they simply went back to the old pitch.

Originally Posted by Han Solo

Dispatch is the canary in the coal mine. They voted themselves pretty draconian cuts and they still got the same WARN notices as our 2554 hostages. Giving in to management demands buys nothing but a smaller bank account if/when the company decides it needs to furlough. Concessions are just a feather in Ed’s cap where he can show off his CEO prowess at the country club, they won’t make or break Delta one way or another but they will make a big difference to individual pilots.

I will trade a permanent ALV reduction for meaningful long term benefits, then trade some of it back when manning is tight for even more long term benefits. I won’t give something for nothing and I strongly favor a permanent ALV reduction over a temporary one.

Originally Posted by GogglesPisano

If the survival of the airline is at stake (and I think this is becoming more and more apparent) I'd settle for a permanent ALV reduction.

When it comes to pilot block hours for the foreseeable future they have a number. We can divide it up as we like.

Cold hard numbers to a better job of keeping more pilots on the property than any written promises.

Originally Posted by UGBSM

If our company is truly fighting for it's survival, then lowering the ALV is not helpful. In fact, the ALV needs to go up. Fewer pilots working more minimizes costs. Carrying more pilots flying less is more costly. Pretty basic.