their plan is to buy Delta.

:D

Well, from what I have seen in the past 15 years, the 777's have replaced most of the 747's, all of the MD11's and DC10's, and all of the L10-11's. Boeing has shut down the 757 line, not sure about the 767 line, but who's buying new ones? Anyone? And they are stretching the 737 to replace those two (larger) airframes.

I see that as Shrinkage...and I was not in the pool.

I think the "Hay Day" for airframe size, was way back in the mid 1970's-1980's, when oil was cheap, and the 747 ruled the international routes, at Pan Am, TWA, United, NW, American, even Delta had a few. Those companies also had L10-11's, DC 10's, etc. Oh, and on the domestic side of the house, they started buying 767's, 757's and still had a lot of 727's. Those were replaced by the MD 88 and 737-800's at Delta.

Where are all those 747's, DC10's, L10-11's today? And where are the 767's and 757's going? Same Place, the Bone Yard.

I don't see that as airframes are getting bigger over time.

At one time they easily could have ... and passed.

New rumor to throw out....I had a flt ops mgt guy who works on the airbus side in the jumpseat yesterday. He said they are talking about moving 50 A320 crews from MSP to ATL and/or NYC on one of the next ae's. Too much deadheading is what he said was their motive for the move. Bummer.....

What's the symbol so i can do some DD.

Delta is short in New York and many rotations that begin or end with a DH is being flown by ATL crews. If they displace off the ATL domestic 767 (which they will everyone eventually) something is needed to buffer the displacements.

The demographic shifts which have been ongoing for more than a decade which pull down Detroit and Minneapolis O&D traffic have continued, although much less so in MSP's case.

Over time I can see SLC and MSP become O and D hubs. They are to some extent now, but I see that trend increasing. Because of this, the footprint of a crew base changes as well.

Relying on my copy of C2K, yes I was here at the time, C2K excused compliance and automatic fixed resets under a variety of circumstances, including two consecutive quarters in which the company had an operating loss and when the US GDP falls more than 25% below 4.3% in 2002 for example. Since C2K was signed just before 9/11, it is probably less than accurate to state that the contract was intentionally violated.

Raising the block hour ratio to 50% was part of the draconian concessions the Delta pilots approved with LOA 46. Again, not a violation of the contract, but a result negotiations with a near bankrupt carrier.

What occurred after C2K was an extraordinary event and certainly not a common MO.

I'm hoping that C2K DALPA and Post Merger C2012 DALPA are two different entities. I also don't believe that our management team would knowingly sign an agreement with us only to quickly alter course when things didn't go their way. If you speak of this as the near future then you will instantly see the end of constructive engagement and the true damage a section 1 violation could do to the company.

I agree that outsourcing needs to stop and regardless of what anyone else says, I'm confident we're heading in that direction over the next 10-15 years.

As for SKYW and RJETs momentum, they may be able to order airplanes on paper, but when it comes time to write the check, I'm afraid one or both of them will implode.

Do the MSP rotations do a lot of deadheading from MSP to ATL or EWR?

Fwiw there's been only a small handful of scheduled NYC M88 Deadheading on the B side anyway...