I dont know enough about it to make a judgement. Everything I have heard so far is either conjecture or soundbites, and I can't make an argument either way with that little information. I know that prior to Korean becoming part of Skyteam, their safety record was abysmal. DAL sent teams there to bolster that and fix many of the problems. I have no knowledge that that did or did not happen here, but to level a charge that DAL management doesn't care about safety is still IMHO pretty serious. I'll leave it to ya'll to decide whether it is valid or not.

They also just recently landed at one of the wrong burg cities in WV I believe. That's never a good indicator of safety culture there...

Well, my wife and I often schedule a day in AMS at the beginning or ending of our european trips, as it's one of our favorite cities. We generally stay in the central city, the last several times we've gone without reservations and found a small flat in the Jordaan area for €70-100...most hotels in central Amsterdam are €150-300. Just look for "Room for Rent" signs in shop windows.

So far as hostels go, I like the atmosphere and have stayed in hostels quite a bit, though not as much with the wife. You can find a bed for €20-25 per person but do pay close attention to the cleanliness factor and how much of a "party hostel" it is before pulling the trigger. I don't think most airline pilots are looking for a place like The Bulldog or Flying Pig Downtown :D...you'll come home reeking like weed, probably won't sleep a lot, but on the plus side you're pretty much guaranteed to see some boobies. A hostel I've had good luck with is The Flying Pig @ Vondelpark, it's a nice part of town and the hostel is quieter/older than is average for AMS.

If you're stuck for anything like 24 hours, absolutely take the train to Centraal Station and stay downtown, it's something like €4 and 15 minutes to get there and the city is well worth checking out. If it's a really short overnight, there is a nice boutique hotel right next to the airport called citizenM, we got a room there once for €70...the rooms are tiny but it's really cool, modern euro design.

Pinnacle had a number of serious incidents - including 3701, in the aftermath of which the NTSB tore Pinnacle's training program a new one - before DL awarded them a bunch of CRJ900 flying (pre-merger).

Gulfstream has long had a very poor reputation for safety in the industry, to the extent that they changed their name a la Valujet.

Mesaba Airlines didn't have a single fatality since their beginning in 1944, had a training program recognized as one of the best in the industry - and Delta sold them to Pinnacle and then killed their Saab contract, codesharing instead with Gulfstream/Silver.

GoJet, their anti-union beginnings aside, is known for recruiting inexperienced pilots. They hire Captains off the street. Delta has awarded them more flying than any other regional the last few years.

Delta clearly cares about safety where their own metal is concerned. On the small-gauge outsourcing end, though...well, draw your own conclusions. They're not any different from other majors in this regard, Continental gladly awarded Colgan Q400 flying despite a long history of safety problems at Colgan - but then was *very* quick to point out that they had absolutely nothing to do with Colgan's operations when Colgan killed 49 passengers who had bought a "Continental" ticket.

There would be a lot of public relations leverage for ALPA in this, if ALPA wasn't so horribly conflicted about outsourcing themselves.

So is the 767 category in Atl a dual category just like the 7ER? Non-revving today and original capt calls in sick and they call in a 767A reserve guy to fly 4 legs on a 75.

For what it's worth DAL is the first US airline to implement an SMS program. If you don't know what that is, go to the Corporate Safety website on Deltanet and start following the links to read about SMS. Top notch stuff if you know anything about safety.

What do you mean by dual category? The only difference between 767 and 7ER categories is that 7ER can do ocean crossings and go farther than 3 degrees south of the equator.

Eni,

Yes, Delta pilots fly the 767 and 757 as a single category. Delta has also maintained a separate
ER" category which did mostly ocean crossings, but lately they've been closing the domestic category and shifting everything to the "ER."

So they're domestic only(but can fly 757 and 767)?

Rog thanks.