SD's update says Monday Oct 29. It will be small.

Those are mostly wearing purple tails these day. Maybe we're getting back into above deck freight?

If so, I hope it comes with their pay and workrules, too. :)

What do you mainline guys think of this article? Delta owns all of our 200s. (140). I would assume that to be able to get rid of them they will have to purchase all 70 76 seat jets from bombardier? Do you guys see delta removing all of pinnacles 200s and letting Skywest purchase all the new 76 seat jets basically setting pinnacle up to be the next comair ? Or do you see delta exchanging pinnacles 200s for 900s and keeping pinnacle around to be the low ball bench mark all other regionals will have to compete against?
It would be nice for you guys to fly them, we all wish that happens one day.
Delta Looks Ahead to December Refleeting - Memphis Daily News

PBS
 

Slow, Sailing, Alfa, T, Timbo, etc:

Do any of you guys recall the real "unspun" number of seats that were lost as a result of PBS ?

Thanks,
BG

No one on this board knows, and if they said they did it would be a lie.

My hope is PNCL isn't hammered to the industry low-ball, next is the evolution of the scope clauses slowly strangles the entire industry, so eventually ALL the outsourced contracting ends. The DALPA PWA made the first steps toward that, but we need UCAL to tighten the noose further, and then AMR/LCC to follow suit even more (not holding my breath).

My "feeling" is that DL doesn't want to give SKYW any more leverage in the now consolidating DCI game. DAL will to talk Embraer or Bombardier to take the -200's in exchange for buying bigger jets. Either company would probably eat the jets in order to keep their production lines open and people employed.

The decision probably won't come until the end of the year when DAL gets the final bids from the manufacturers, heck they could split the order between the two for all we know!

Good luck over at PNCL, you all really need it!

Please please please hold your breath. Try it while holding onto a rock and jumping into the ocean and see how far down you can go and still make it back up. I'll bet you can't make it 200 feet.

Betcha can't betcha can't betcha can't

That is a number I would LOVE to hear, but no, I have no clue whatsoever.

I've said it before--I'm glad to be here.

But there are a significant number of pilots here who are completely drunk on Widget-Aid. We've got to start using some critical thinking skills--not just swallowing the party line.

Did you read the memo in question? I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to analyze it like a shareholder/industry analyst (and the lawyer who wrote it) would.

So, "brah," I take it that you thought that memo said they'd be placing a widebody order in 2013? Enjoy the view with those Widget colored glasses on.

It's ironic--I guarantee the execs possess absolutely none of the "Widget Punch" sentimentality they're counting on us to believe in. That's why they enjoy huge bonuses--and why we're just tickled pink when we manage to abscond with a few crumbs from their table.

There is no way to separate out a number just for PBS, it is like after an 80 yard touchdown drive trying to separate out how much the guard or the tackle contributed to the score.

There was a package of work rule changes that were all meant to reduce the reserve headcount. Most other airlines were restructuring by piling more time onto regular line holders and eliminating duty rigs, thus you had narrow body guys at other airlines working 19 or 20 days a month. Our goal was to reduce the reserve guarantee paid (the difference between 70 hours and what you actually flew) to a minimum without impacting days off or forcing pilots to spend their lives on the road. The target goals were:

• Average a 75-76 hour initial load in 13-14 days for regular line pilots with the ability to pick up time on his schedule and not the company's
• Average 12-13 days flown for reserve pilots with about 60 hours block
• Preserve 1 for 3.5
• Increase Duty Period Average from 5 to 5:15 (yep that was a gain)

In order to accomplish that there were three main things needed:

• Reduce the variability in need for reserves, PBS helped with that by eliminating trip conflicts
• Reduce the variability in the supply for reserves, our old system had Supplemental Reserve Lines and there was no way for the company to control which pilots on which X-Day groupings could bid for those
• Level out the amount of flying done by each reserve (that was the RAW system)

Those three things together amounted to about an 880 reduced pilot headcount. That was on a base of about 7500 pilots in category. There is absolutely no way to break out how much of that was PBS.

Is that unspun enough for you? By the way, all that information was available during the TA deliberations in exactly the same format. The only number we couldn't publish was the average number of pilots in category projected in the future as that laid out the company's plans. In 2004 they predicted that we would have 6,900 pilots in category in 2008 and we were a little short of 7,400 at the merge.

I am long XIV and SVXY, short UVXY and VXX via puts. Read up on Contango, backwardation and negative roll yield. UVXY alone made me 70k in my DC plan this year. Look at the one year chart, it is adouble the VIX fund that gets eaten up by Contango.