And don't forget, if you use a Joint Venture, or Code Share, vs. grow your own, you kill two birds with one stone;

1. you gain access to 'new' markets (Australia and Heathrow) without buying or hiring.
2. you eliminate compettion on those routes, so you can raise your fares.

Any wonder why Delta is JV'ng and CS'ng with every living thing under the sun?

Oh...and the third bird you can hit with that same stone; you can whipsaw the different employee groups against each other every time they ask for mo'money.

OK, maybe. But that still does little to solve the massive dual subsidized foreign airline fantasy bubble ponzi scheme. So we blow a billion dollars, and inherit a money losing albatross with a whack job still at the helm (most likely) and then EK blackmales Airbus into pressuring the EU to give them an equal or greater foothold somewhere else in Europe. Now we're stuck with that white elephant, out the cash, eating its losses, diverting even more of our pax and the Heros of Farnsborough Gulf/Asia airlines that all think they are getting a million super widebodies to conquer the earth are still barfing capacity into anywhere and everywhere.

I'm still not seeing the gain here.

Side note: replace millions with billions and billions with trillions and you're talking the federal government. ;) :D :mad:

It's amazing to go from reading a political fiscal cliff article and then a Delta related article and realize our financial issues, despite being a massive corporation, are about 1000 times smaller than the federal governments. disgusting really.

We're down 1000 pilots since the merger, still considered "fat" on pilots, and still shrinking rapidly with hiring told to be a year, or more, away.

We're also down 45+ airplanes since the merger.

You forgot that they pay more.

http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/new+rea...8b_4189797.gif

Careful about that.

What if we took delviery of 18 787's (or 777's or A350's etc) but lost the same number of seats in 76ER's.

Huge net loss in pilots. Since we're culling the great ER expansion of 07-08 in favor of EU superhub feed, this actually looks very likely to happen too.

Crew Planning news out. Updated 2013 Block hour plan this month. Next AE in Feb or Mar. ATL 717 & DTW 73N to open.

Exactly. Maybe the 717 shift from the 50 seaters will rebolster our ranks to some degree, and great if it happens. But I'm confident the company is still looking to mine more productivity from us in a number of ways. Heck if they simplified a few fleet types that would reduce many hundreds of pilot positions. A work rule change here or there, another couple hundred. Shifting ER flying as those are parked for much larger planes will save many, many hundreds of pilot positions. And if they can find a net loss of pilot positions in the new FTDT regs as some have suggested, there goes some more. Then there's the 88 fleet, which can begin to be replaced pretty quickly. But with what? Much larger 737-900's or A321 NEOs? Hundreds less pilots once again. Especially with continued "capacity dicipline" but even without it.

Even with the 717's we could shrink a thousand or more over the next 10 years. Easy.

The really important question is who started the rumor? Just because one hears it a lot, doesn't mean it has any teeth. I heard all sorts of rumors at the MSP training center, of which zero came true.