Bar, I have to agree with Elvis with the economy. If two people running for President are promising you different directions and the race is close then businesses (not Delta) will wait until after the election to determine their direction. I mean why throw your money in one direction or another if you don't know what's going to happen?

Same with Delta, why would they spend the money to increase seat inventory until they know what everyone else is going to do? I don't think they would increase capacity and hope people come, but rather, hold capacity down until it costs them money and then grow.

Which at this airline a jump in seat inventory would probably require GDP to jump from it's current 1.3% to 9% before they'd consider increasing capacity over increasing price.

Ah, good to know.

But shouldn't that be an increase of around 25 jets (1/3 of 75 new firm orders) over their current 120?

Which would be about a 21% increase or kind of like us adding 150 jets to our fleet. That'd be reallllly nice.

Yep - you're right. 2/3's of the 75 on order (which includes this 50).

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...merconcern.png
So Alaska gets 17 additional 737s and Delta loses 17 DC-9s?
Wait a minute.....

Guy kicking sign... FTB... that's funny. Laughed out loud.

The economy...

I wouldn't be in a big hurry to buy new airplanes, expand, pay for new gates and routes if I were an airline exec. Delta is making all the right moves right now. Giving up ATL-BCN sucks, yes it does. But Spain is currently at 25% unemployment and it's going to get worse before it gets better. The only reason we're making money and not bleeding red ink and furloughing is because of our capacity management. Flying bigger planes into our partners hubs makes sense right now because it limits our exposure to the economic crisis in Europe.

The IMF just released a forecast a few days ago. It's not pretty. They claim the threat of a double dip recession is increasing. Growth estimates for the entire world, including Asia have been slashed.

Fedex just announced a restructuring that includes fleet reduction, and employee reduction. That alone should tell you what the world economy is doing.

China, supposedly growing at about 8% a year, is stagnating. Some economists say that the growth numbers out of there have been exaggerated by the government (shocking). One thing you can't fake is the annual electrical consumption factor. This has grown steadily until recently, and is now flat for China.

Bottom line is this. Yes, we need to protect our flanks via scope. But new airplanes are easily ordered, and pilots easily hired when things pick up. When they do, we'll be ready. But for now, I'm glad we're taking a conservative approach and storing up those acorns, and still making investments in things passengers want like nice interiors, global internet, sky clubs and decent terminals. Keep an eye on scope, but this AK order is really nothing but a refreshing of a fleet that is in need of it. With all the Hawaii flying they do, having non ETOPS -400's in the mix makes equipment swaps and the like much more challenging. This was a good business decision for them.

Then there will be the "Fiscal Cliff"

There will always be something.

I preferred the friendly, amiable, mostly drunk Cliff.

Sinca,

I think you are confusing your once a year "APD," with a regular PD. An APD will drop with down to 25% reserve coverage with the exception of a few holiday black out dates.

So if 45 reserves were required the APD should work all the way down to 12 available. Remember, you only get 1 APD per anniversary year so always try a regular PD (unlimited) first.

Scoop

I wonder if it was against Postal Code to drink in uniform?

It's Chicago ... .