fisherpilot

So I'm on the outside wanting to get in. I, like many others, want to get hired when the hiring resumes. I do understand that the Summer schedule is when the staffing is at it's thinnest. If there are instances now where they are running out of pilots to cover trips what do they do when the flying picks up in the summer?? Try doing more GS? Pull IP's out of the school house, management guys out of the office, cancel trips? I can't understand not wanting to add pilots unless there is a bigger picture they are not saying (more shrinking). I'm not the brightest, but when you bring on a new hire they are essentially the cheapest (hourly) rate that you can cover flying with, right? I would think that would bring the overall hourly cost (average per pilot) down. Am I wrong? Correct me if so. I would think the cost of cancelling flights would far out weigh the cost of bringing on more warm bodies to the front of DAL aircraft.

thanks in advance for shedding the light on this for me

Roadkill

Indeed good words scambo. The problem with Internet sport-bi!ching is it doesn't convey a laugh and wink at the end too well. Indeed my situation in life is relatively great to most folks' and I'm happy and thankful for it daily. Enjoy my job and trips both. Live comfortably within means.
All that said I do still like to ensure awareness of what stagnated reality means for guys at the bottom of the pyramid for 12 years. Dalad does put it well (though of course Denny crane isn't the right tgt). My goal is not really complaining it is education and awareness training for TA future voters. I fly with guys ALL the time who say "oh you'll be a capt in 2-3 years we're about to hire like crazy. ". They have no idea what real retirement or possible hire numbers are and they just flat out don't believe me. They're the voting block I worry about. Hey it's a hobby man!

Pineapple Guy

I think our profession now places too much emphasis on seniority, to the point we have significant "winners" and "losers" among our pilot group; based on nothing more than the day they were hired, relative to the thousand of others. Anyone hired in the "back of the wave" in an individual hiring cycle has a disproportionately lower career earnings potential, and while this was always true to a degree, the length of the post 9/11 lost decade has really amplified the normal effect of this.

But good luck trying to get a majority of pilots to agree with that, and actually formulate changes to mitigate it....

dalad

After I got hired about 1700 were hired after me. Then they furloughed 540 after Mo Ron did his ego fulfilling furlough in 92. I sat on the right seat of the 88 for five years then got 727B in 95. Went to the Training Dept as a 727B instructor and got my rating. Went back to the line as a 727A in NYC (those were my most fun years at DAL, sometimes with2 new hires to keep me out of trouble). Moved to 73NA after that, then backpedalled to the left seat of the 88. Went back to 73NA, the ERA in NYC. I have been blessed and couldn't even start to fathom how the "lost generation" feels even though I fly with many of them. It really has been a doo doo sandwich for them. This career is such a crap shoot, and a roll of the dice. If I had accepted an earlier class at NWA I would have been about 1500 numbers junior now. So go figure. My hat goes off to the lost generation because most of them show up for work with a great attitude.

Denny Crane

Dalad,

I couldn't agree more and you put it a lot more eloquently than I ever could.

Roadkill and daldude,

I was in no way trying to belittle or make light of your (and many others) situation and apologize if I came across that way. Dalad summed it up pretty well. I took a slightly different path but we must be pretty close in seniority. As an '88 hire I upgraded to the left seat in 2001 almost exactly 13 years to the day. I've been displaced back a few times thru my career so far but when the music stopped I was very lucky to be where I was.

Hopefully things will improve in the next couple of years.

Denny

Roadkill

whoops I mixed up dalad and daldude heh. Youz guys sorted it out though

Surprising, and well said. The seniority system rewards folks differently for doing the same job (virtually). This is usually an indicator for an unfair practice (witness women and minorities in workplace progress), but we all accept it because it's a way to do it we've all agreed on, and there USED TO BE an expectation that it would all work out evenly in the end as we all aged. That is no longer true.

I am amazed every time I see MORE power given to seniority these days... if ever there was a time to even the playing field for lifestyle and expectations, it would be now, but instead we continue to broaden the gap between haves and have-nots with various boosts to seniority bidding power. Every single scrap that makes it down to the bottom now, no matter how small, someone above says, "Hey that should have been MY scrap, I'm senior!" Of course, it's kind of understandable as HE has been waiting for better scraps for a long time too...

I understand Emirates breaks their bidding up into 6 cycles of 2 months each. The bid group is broken up into 6 sub-groups. Every 2 months their position rotates as to which group bids first. Within your GROUP, your seniority matters. So if you're senior you ALWAYS get best pick of what your group gets, even if your group is bidding last. However, if you're junior, you at least have 2-4 months of the year where you might get something decent, you're not the waterboy every day of your life forever. This seems to me to be on to something, a more equitable distribution of lifestyle at least. Your seniority still gives you the #1 important power of bidding category (aircraft, where you live/fly, and your relative seniority in that category), but doesn't take EVERYTHING from those below.

Problem is, when the system breaks and there is slow or no upwards movement, every guy in the entire pyramid feels he hasn't gotten what he SHOULD over the last couple years after paying his dues all the way there-- and is that much more likely to fight and claw over every scrap that makes it to him! It's a Ponzi scheme with only one winner when it breaks, as it has.

I could be wrong on it being Emirates doing this, but it's still a good system/point. I think if your replaced the word "junior" with "woman" or "guy who's been doing the same job as everyone else for 15 years vs. 25" and then tried to justify our system to someone, the glaring inequities and lack of meaningful justification would become embarrassingly obvious.

Timbo

Career progression has always been a crap shoot, and none of it is in your (our) control.

It's actaully a great argument for Longevity Pay!

Where's T Square? You heard it here first!

Right off the top of my head, I can think of several reasons the Lost Boys are in such bad shape:

1. 9-11 and subsequent furloughs
2. Airline Bankruptcies and shrinkage
3. Age 65 and 5 years of stagnation
4. The market crash of 2008 which lead to...
5. Industry consolodation, where 5+7=10 in terms of pilot jobs
6. Fuel prices, causing a slow economy, and more airline shrikage
7. Europe's economy, killing a lot of our trans-atlantic flying

What'd I miss?

Bottom line; the last 12 years have sucked, for everyone, but especially for the ones on the bottom of the list.

Roadkill

Yeah... I'm still looking for anything to avoid doing taxes...
can you tell?

bigbusdriver

8. One less warm body up front

- Last flights -
Delta L10 (2001), 727 (2003)
NWA 727 (2003), DC10 (2007), 742 (2007), 74F (2009)

Ralphie

DAL
Council: 001
City: Bloomington
Date: April 8, 2013


New Aircraft: Delta is pursuing an order for 8–12 wide-body aircraft for delivery starting in 2015. These will be used for fly from West Coast (SEA/LAX) to Asia (HKG, PVG, PEK) with the ability to over-fly NRT/HND.

Hiring: We anticipate a nominal amount of hiring in 2014; currently estimating 60 per month January–June, then 20 per month

(Also, a preemptive "kiss my arse" to anyone who wants to lecture me on reposting already disseminated information in case this has already been covered.)

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...