Couple of things, it's hard to do a comparison of like sized narrow bodies between a fleet that consists mostly of 737-700 sized airplanes paying the same as our 747s and a fleet of MD88s and 90s that are larger who pay less. I agree.

Did you see the numbers I posted? It's based off of the numbers SWA posted.

As to 88 utilization, at the moment (February) or for the year? I remember hearing over 50% of the departures in ATL last summer were to be MD88s. When one of ours breaks in ATL is seems as if it's hard to find another.

We've heard the 757s in Asia are inefficient, but they're lumped into the domestic BH number (the one used for the DCI ratio). Some of the 757s are old too are they not? Are they being used to their max?

And the 753s seem to fly a lot from ATL-MCO, that's not a long flight. Some of those 737s and 757s are running common 88 rotations as well.

So unless you have annual MD88 hours, I'm going to use the average.

 

He's like the guy that shows up at your yard sale and offers you a quarter for that old stereo you have marked at $50.

 

In other words, you're going to continue to make stuff up.

 

Or cover training as new jets come in.

Speaking of that, we were promised 7 crews per 717, yet, 7 crews per crew planning is overstaffed?

 

No, I don't work for DALPA.

I'm just going to use the numbers we have available and do some rather simple math.

 

I'm not following. Coffee hasn't kicked in yet. What fleet is overstaffed at 7 crews per plane?

 

Double post... ?

 

They mention the 9 is overstaffed at slightly more than 7 crews and the 88/90 is overstaffed at slightly less than 5 crews in the March newsletter.

The 737 is referenced as being built up for coming deliveries, meaning more pilots than currently needed. They're over 7 crews too.

They specifically mentioned the 717 needs 7 crews, but that's for the build up of training as they're limited there too for how many crews they can train in a month. If 5 crews is overstaffed on the proverbial backbone of the fleet, I seriously doubt 7 crews will last on the 717 either.
-----
Now let me make something clear, I'm not saying any of the staffing levels are nefarious. They're what we allow. I just think the notion that we're paid less in W2s than SWA pilots because they have this uber-high utilization may not be the case at all when you look at similar domestic only aircraft. You read that welcome packet and you see how their credit pay builds up fast. Every SWA pilot I talk to seems to be in the mid 70s to low 80s in flight hours per month but not in pay. But people can call me disingenuous but I'm just trying to figure out the truth via an excel spreadsheet and posted data.

 

I don't have my contract with me. Does anyone know what the minimum rest period they have to give you after you finish a short call period? If SC period ends at 11PM tonight what is the earliest they can call me tomorrow morning? Thanks

 

I think it comes down to aircraft utilization. Yes, the DC9 was intentionally overstaffed. But the 737 was not. The 320 has FOs being displaced due to lower utilization. The 717 will be used more then the DC9. The M88 utilization will increase in the summer. I doubt they'll be many displacements off the M88.