Yeah, and that was the same for me for the KC-135, T-37 and B-1 that I flew in the Air Force. I've had good luck during the past few weeks with respect to MEL's, but last night we had quite a few.

 

One year, and I'm aware of that, but if I'm going to rant, I might as well make it good. We stayed one hour in the terminal after all the passengers were off to write down statements and have the police take our contact information...the FBI will investigate this as an inflight disturbance caused by a large, loud-mouthed drunk guy that irritated everyone.

 

How about this:
"This is FTB at Spackler Airlines. Hello everyone on today's investor call. We're serious about capacity discipline and have been able to delivery a unit revenue premium over the past few years to the industry.

We have posted better operating and financial results than anticipated in 2012, We are committed to sustainable and growing profitability for our investors and given our better than expected operating and financial results in 2012, we believe that if we can continue to execute our business plan, and barring an economic downturn or other unanticipated even, we could begin to grow our mainline fleet by 70 airframes over the next five years."



FTB investor call 2013: "Although the economy didn't have a downturn, it didn't have an upturn either and due to multiple unanticipated events, we foresee only a need for 30 more jets at mainline, and that is only a definite maybe. We may not be able to grow at all if we are to sustain our necessary unit revenue premiums."



SEC: "You said you'd grow by 70 airframes in this report back in 2012, now you say 30, you filed a false report, you're all going to jail."

?

Couldn't that mean they filed false reports to the SEC when they said they'd only have 49 used MD-90s, not 65?

 

What?
No Coffee? That's a No.Go item for me!

 

No rant here, I just remember that being one of the convoluted problems with that aircraft.

 

No, I meant I was ranting, and I wanted to make my rant good! That reminds me, I haven't had my coffee yet -- I better get some.

 

These darn controllers never let up.They just keep reminding us of our flaws on the 9.And if its not go direct somewhere it's turn 3 deg to get back on course.

 

Entry Level Pilot Pay

An entry level pilot will be paid at the rate monthly of:
1. $3,377.96 effective July 1, 2012.
2. $3,665.09 effective January 1, 2013.
3. $3,775.04 effective January 1, 2014.
4. $3,888.29 effective January 1, 2015.

First year pay in 2014 once qualified is $68.08.
First year pay in 2015 once qualified is $70.12
Second year pay in 2015 DC9-7ER is: $96.58-110.96
Retirement is 15% in 2014.

2.5 mos. entry pay is $9437
9.5 mos. at 75.5 avg. reserve pay im 2014 is $48,830.
Retirement contribution would be $8740

Yes, the lodging after indoc and uniforms aren't paid...

That's a hair over $67,000 without ever breaking guarantee or factoring in per diem or profit sharing, for a pilot starting on Jan 1, 2014.

 

+1.................

 

A couple of things, you're talking airframes growth, they're talking capacity right? And you’re saying 3-4 years, looks like some of these delivery schedules go out six years to 2018, right? And you’re saying the next AE will be indicative of the next six years while right now we’ll be adding new 717 categories while the DC9 category that the 717s will replace will still be open for the interim, right?

I don't know if I see things as rosy as you might.

Start with the notion we'd have to replace 225 airplanes for me to be right. Well, let's first look at the fleet:



So they said the 739 was a 1;1 replacement of 757s, 763s and 320s and that it'd be done over the next six years (if I had the delivery schedule right). I find that plausible. So that's 100 of the 225 additions.

Now look at the 88s, they'll be almost as old at the end of this decade as some of the DC95s are now. Will they stick around or will the 717 + MD90 replace them?

Anyways, grab a bag, throw the 739, 717 and MD90 into it. Take out a portion of the 757s, all of the 763s, all of the 9s and think about those MD88s, hell, blame it on Nextgen and Bucking Bar let's get grid of them all. Take into account DCI@450 where yes the fleet dropped 25% but the capacity only dropped 16% and maybe even less with more efficient and faster jets capable of better utilization.

You could get a flat to a 1.5% yoy decrease in capacity with that, near flat mainline growth, and still maintain the 1.56 ratio the entire way.

Seems plausible to me, continues our current shrinking trajectory. But let's just say it's too much, weren't there rumors of picking up some more 717s? Do a 20-30 more of those things and you have a flat capacity.

But you do have more mainline airframes. 30-40 in that scenario. Which if we multiply that by the 10.1 pilot ratio we're running on the 88 we'd end up with 300-400 more pilots? If we did 80 airplanes like the filing said and get to 797 total (i.e. 4% larger than we were 4 years ago) it's 800 more pilots?

Minus the more productive pilot efficiencies and we'd need to be hiring 3-7 pilots a month over the next six years. But we do have a contract in the middle of that and given our current trends in productivity, paying for our own jets and increasing jumbo RJs, who knows.

I'll be happy if in 2018 we still require 11,800 pilots.