FTB,

Great work.

Here I want to explain the equivalent seating better...

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/temp8-23.png

Your asterisk is important. If we get 88 717's, that is 10,296 seats, subtract out the 5830 from DCI, and that leaves 4466 seats remaining to come out of the market (since the deal is capacity neutral). Well, 19 DC9's at 124 seats per is 2,356. Bottom line with this math is that there are another 2,110 seats that need to come out of the market for this 717 deal to be neutral. Wonder which mainline jets those will come from? I don't buy the idea that the 717's are growth aircraft.

I would say there are certain cities, probably lots of them, that only support a partially full 50 seater. When DAL dumps the 50 seaters (and they will, regardless of whether we pass POS2012), they can do one of two things.

A) If it was a mostly full 50 seater, maybe the market will support a 70 seater (No increased mainline flying).

B) if it was a partially full 50 seater, it's probably not worth putting a 70 seater in the route. Drop the market altogether (No increased mainline flying).

That's why I think the 70-76 seaters are so much more dangerous to our jobs. THEY are the jets that replace our flying. Try to ignore the distraction put out by ALPA regarding 50 seaters and overall numbers of RJs. Look at what happens to the number of MAINLINE REPLACEMENT JETS (70-76 seats). That's what we care about.

OK, first let me get the Jim Cramerisms disclosures out of the way. I am NYC based CP on reserve (always have been). 2008 hire with an MBA and I dont own DAL stock in my charitable trust. I haven't even opened the new TA but got info from various posts and the Charimen's Letter. What does this mean, I've been trained to think like mgmt and know what to pick up on in their press releases. I like our current mgmt team as they have openly disclosed their plan since 2008, and have executed it so far with impressive results. I wont pull any punches but tell it as I see it.

Lesson #1: Any Mgmts stated goal since MBA 101 is to maximize shareholder value, taught from day one and reemphasized daily. This means maximize profit by minimizing costs. Pilots are a cost, period.
Lesson #2: Don't take it personal, its just business.

As a newhire in 2008 the differnet mgmt types came down to newhire indoc and gave their outlook for the future of the co. If you knew what to pick-up on the groundwork was being laid out.

At this time, rumors of a merger with NWA were on the street but these folks were hush. But they were saying things like Dal wants a 100 seat aircraft and there was no reasonable a/c on the mkt to buy. Also, Dal is rapidly exapnding overseas but is weak in Asia and the overlap with their system was negligible. Enter NW's DC-9's (temp fix) and the Narita hub. Deal done.

Next RA and mgmt types state in multiple speeches and investor conferences that Dal will win in NY and that HVC's need the total business class experience. That they need the HVC to have the business class experience from Leg one on their journey. Enter the slot swap, terminal build and more 70 seat two class aircraft. And being a frequent USAir commuter into LGA and seeing the RJ operation there, there was no surprise that 90+ % of the flying went to RJ's. Most city pairs do not support mainline aircraft but do have wealthy HVC's coiming into NYC and beyond and want the FC seat. Anyone not see this coming?

Now we have this TA which is immediately backed up by press releases of a 717 lease from SWA and worse of all the pilot group is thrown out as hinging on the deal. If anyone believes that they are ignorant of big business. Mgmt is trying to tell us thru the media that the 88 717's are hingent on this TA passing. But do you really think SWA (and Boeing) would hinge this deal on the vote of a pilot group who took a BK contract? SWA mgmt has made a strategic plan regarding these aircraft and their future 737 orders and is not going to look back. Since we are one year out from rx the first 717's, I'm sure our mgmt guarenteed SWA mgmt that the deal would be done and divestiture of their jets would be per the contract. Dal has a year to get it done. SWA's stock has been hammered in the mkts for deviating from their business model including operating two aircraft types. They will get rid of these jets and DAL will take them on-time. Kicker: DAL loves getting good jets at cheap prices relative to new aircraft. Will they turn away 88 narrowboby jets they've been seeking since 2008 at a inexpensive price? Of course not, it's just business.

What's next? Dal hurried this deal thru to allow time for more negotiations in case the first (or subsequent deals) fail. They will come back to the table to achieve their goals. They are on a timeline that we now know (mid 2013). New JFK terminal and LGA concourse connection also mid 2013. In my opinion vote no and renegotiate. I'm also a fan of DPA, at least to force a vote and scare ALPA into reform. The fact that Moak was a 7ER guy making about $200k a yr at DAL and last year made $500k at ALPA makes me ill.

GREAT POST! And good to see someone else is thinking at one in the morning.

That's a very interesting to way to run these numbers out.

I'd love to run the table on this using the mainline fleet because I have a feeling you're spot on not to mention how does the MD-90 fit in? Or does it?

Anyways, the problem is, it'll take a while. Wikipedia has the fleet pretty accurately laid out but not how many in the different configurations. That can be my tomorrow project. My tonight project is sneaking back into bed without the dog growling, which wakes up the wife, which then she always seems to look over at the clock and oh I'm busted. "it's 230 in the am and you're still playing on the internet with your friends you've never met?!?!"

The quick response is "baby's fine. not sure why he was crying. teething?"

damn dog.

80's final thought for the night:

There are some nice things in the contract, but much of the rest of the stuff is made to hopefully just barely pass.

If they want my stamp of approval on this thing, the company needs to pony up more cash (not just exchanging profit sharing for pay). Throw some 1's in front of those pay bumps and I'll play along.

Very impressive and good post! Along with Carl's post, and Boomer's (see 3-7 pages back), I think they nail the true situation.

I will be voting "NO" due to the increased outsourcing of our jobs via 76 seat scope sale. They could have given 0% raise and satisfied me with scope recapture, but scope sale and inflation /COLA raise while taking away some profit sharing... no.

And this talk of reserve averages is completely off target also-- reserves manning is NOT ABOUT averages! Reserve manning is about WORST CASE, thus the word "Reserve". Summer flying peak is the worst case, and if you can use guys up to ALV+15 (maybe 100 hours!) in your limiting factor worst case, instead of 68 hours, you just gained 50% utilization of your reserves! Of course you won't "average" that high year round, the driving peak is only during the summer. Make no mistake--ALV+15 utilization will allow company to cover 50% more flying with it's reserves when the summer chips are down. 6800 block hours of reserve in Aug used to take 100 pilots sitting reserve to cover at least... Now that can be covered with 68! That's 68% of current pilots. And it ONLY MATTERS during those summer months, 68 pilots will still be "fat" during the rest of the year.

IMO, if 20% of the airline is reserves now that's 2400 pilots. Their critical limfac summer work can be covered now by 1632 pilots, a reduction of 768. Taa Daah, suddenly we are 768 fat and don't have to hire to cover retirements until end of 2016!

This single ALV+15 aspect alone is worth voting "NO" if you don't want 4 more years of no replacement hiring and stagnation. And with all the "capacity neutral" talk by DAL and RA, I absolutely don't believe anything about 88 717 jets causing any hiring at Delta, they'd just park -9 and older jets one for one as the 717s trickled in.

Well, shazam there you have it.