Interesting comment from Michael Boyd...he's pretty good at thinking outside the box.


No, That Long-Range Capability Isn't That Valuable, Anymore. The common assumption that more ultra long-haul flights are the wave of the future is now in jeopardy. The name of the game is revenue maximization, and the price of fuel has rendered the cost of schlepping the extra weight just to go nonstop to Jo'burg hard to justify. Outcomes? More focus on Global Portals such as DFW/American and Delta/Atlanta, and CDG/SkyTeam in re-structuring revenue flows. Pertinent: this marginalizes the value of aircraft with super long-haul range. Result: material rethinking of fleet decisions.

FYI, RA will be on CNBC at 3pm EDT.

I agree with him - comments from upper management and the high cost of fuel imply this is the future. It makes it more competitive (and more profitable for Delta overall) to fly people to Skyteam major hubs (NRT, CDG, AMS, FCO if Alitalia could get their act together, ICN, etc) then make connections and fly from there.

I thought when the 744 rumor came around that we could do with some more large airplanes to make DL hub - other hubs connections. Then use the smaller airplanes to flow the traffic.

SLC, for example should have more int'l flying for our West coast hub - but I guess if you kill the "Western" part of that hub, you don't have enough connection traffic.

SLC would make a good foil for an expanding DFW hub if USAir/AA cut PHX a lot. We could pull traffic from all along the west coast - those big cities have lot of people who want to go to Europe. SAN, SNA, LAX, ONT, SFO, OAK, PDX -> SLC -> Europe hub would work well.

Here are the final results as far a movement up and down from the bid.

There were 136 new captains in the AE, VD and MD combined.

64 pilots moved from Capt to FO.

266 pilots got pay raises through the AE, 156 pilots moved to same paying positions, and 162 moved to lower.

210 pilots got pay raises through mandatory displacements, 210 pilots moved to same paying positions, and 132 moved to lower.

8 pilots got pay raises through voluntary displacements, 54 pilots moved to same paying positions, and 12 moved to lower.


We have had a net gain of 251 new Captains on the bids issued since the TA was signed.

Here's a short piece from a NPR show called "Marketplace" about Delta hiring flight attendants. The Delta piece starts around 10:55 in.

http://download.publicradio.org/podc...554-1363869613

It's an MP3 file.

If you pull out the 767 to 7ER "displacements", what does it look like?

Re: displacement training… Thanks everyone. I totally did not see that “convert before Jr” box. Oh, well. I’m half way down, so it’s doesn’t make much difference anyway.

Interesting:

Delta Flight Attendants hire Delta Flight Attendants.

Pinnacle's human resource department screens Delta pilots.

OK. Thanks, I appreciate the clarification!

I hope there is some serious sarcasm in the comments about this "typo" by SD. That statement about hiring in 2012 was absolutely intentional and served its purpose.