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-   -   Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta? (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/delta/36912-any-latest-greatest-about-delta.html)

georgetg 09-08-2009 08:49 AM


Originally Posted by Hawaii50 (Post 674968)
The West Coast was the one area this combined company could have grown and provided new Capts jobs for the junior guys who seem fully focused on regaining RJ flying. I'm for that, of course, but the job I want is the one AS guys are doing flying DL pax up and down the coast...We don't need to dominate LAX, just add choice to routes with a better product than our competitors to start. We have more to offer potential customers post-merger as well.

Amen

And we have the Asia flying in the portfolio again.
To restore some of Delta's domestic west coast operation when the MD11 flew to asia would be great.

It will be hard to achieve parity with the quality of the Alaska product though...

Cheers
George

Hawaii50 09-08-2009 08:51 AM


Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 674974)

VA doing well out of the chute???? I think you should read a little about their financial performance. Not only are they losing tons of money but they are double digits away in revenue verses cost to get to the break even point. They were supposed to be 4 times the size they are now in their original business plan. Their investors have seen where they are heading and bailed out using buyout clauses. They have yet to turn a dime of profit in any quarter.

Profit? When's the last time we showed a profit? They lost about 15 mil on revenues of 136 mil for 2Q09. Our fuel hedging guy loses us that much daily. Their load factors are up and they're adding flights. We have a lot more to offer West Coast customers than they do and should be able to do much better even with a higher cost structure. We're the largest airline in the world and people in the 2nd biggest city in the country barely use us because we don't go where they want to go. But you do bring up another good reason for DL to jump back in. We can help show VX the door.

georgetg 09-08-2009 08:55 AM


Last week British Airways took delivery of its first Embraer E-170 (G-LCYD) aircraft, the second new type for BA along side its first Airbus A318 (G-EUNA). Each aircraft are certified for the steep 5.5 degree approach to London City airport where they will be frequent visitors for significantly different missions. The E-170 will fly on UK regional routes, while the A318 will cross the Atlantic to JFK with an all-business configuration. The E-170's UK arrival was postponed last week after an alleged bird strike following the climb out from Recife in Brazil. The aircraft has since returned to Sao Jose dos Campos for minor repairs. Embraer undertook steep approach trials at London City during the Summer with a specially painted E-190 aircraft.
Mainline!

Cheers
George

Hawaii50 09-08-2009 08:59 AM


Originally Posted by georgetg (Post 674983)
It will be hard to achieve parity with the quality of the Alaska product though...

Cheers
George

You're right about that. FAs and agents go through regular customer service training. Probably the best FAs in the industry.

dragon 09-08-2009 09:07 AM


Originally Posted by slowplay (Post 674947)
Anyone who can think....nice!

The only metric where DCI is "growing" is ASMs. They are carrying some passengers longer distances, but their total share of passengers is declining. Mainline domestic block hours went from 51.5% to 56.2% of total system domestic block hours from January 07 through March 09.

Oh, even thought they now have 153 of the new 76 seat jets, their total aircraft count is down over 100. That means 250+ of their "old" aircraft have been parked. They're shrinking, and shrinking aggressively.

Anyone who can think will look at facts and not let emotional spin get in the way of their "I don't like it" rants.

Nobody is saying you have to like it. Let's just deal with real data, please.

So, if the ASMs are going up and the RPMs are going up, doesn't that mean the regionals are taking more of our flying?

From our August traffic numbers:

RPMs (000):
Domestic 11,136,640 11,283,238 (1.3%)
Mainline 8,803,634 9,012,572 (2.3%)
Regional 2,333,006 2,270,666 2.7%

ASMs (000):
Domestic 12,811,549 12,978,771 (1.3%)
Mainline 9,932,580 10,160,235 (2.2%)
Regional 2,878,969 2,818,536 2.1%

If I read this correctly the parentheses indicate a negative number while the lack thereof would imply growth. Now, this could mean anything so I looked up the definitions.


Available seat miles (ASM) — the total of all the seats available on every airline route, multiplied by the length of the route — are the benchmark of an airline’s total capacity. Revenue passenger miles (RPM) show the number of seat-miles for which the airline is actually filling a seat and making money. Revenue, or yield, per RPM shows how much an airline will make on each filled seat on each mile it flies.
If the "benchmark" of an airlines capacity is the ASM and the ASM for the regionals at DAL is growing while the mainline ASMs are shrinking, wouldn't that indicate they're still taking our passengers and therefore our flying?

dragon 09-08-2009 09:10 AM


Originally Posted by Hawaii50 (Post 674985)
Profit? When's the last time we showed a profit? They lost about 15 mil on revenues of 136 mil for 2Q09. Our fuel hedging guy loses us that much daily. Their load factors are up and they're adding flights. We have a lot more to offer West Coast customers than they do and should be able to do much better even with a higher cost structure. We're the largest airline in the world and people in the 2nd biggest city in the country barely use us because we don't go where they want to go. But you do bring up another good reason for DL to jump back in. We can help show VX the door.

There may have been an actual profit last quarter but with "creative" accounting we showed a loss. However, we ended up with 500 Million more in the bank at the end of the last quarter than we started with. I know if I had 500M more in the bank at the end of the quarter I would call it a profit and I would probably be calling in rich for a while.:D

H46Bubba 09-08-2009 09:53 AM


Originally Posted by georgetg (Post 674988)

The E-170 will fly on UK regional routes, while the A318 will cross the Atlantic to JFK with an all-business configuration.
Mainline!

Cheers
George

Wow! An A318 doing transatlantic flying? I wonder what kind of profit margin they're going to make off that while competing with widebody aircraft?

80ktsClamp 09-08-2009 09:58 AM


Originally Posted by MD80 (Post 674970)
The FAA is considering the requirement that all airline pilots have a ATP rating and 1500 hrs. Not that its going to happen... but would it solve the problems in airline mergers/bankruptcy/code-shares if the FAA required a minimum flight experience.

example:

Aircraft seats..................PIC required Total Time

51......................................5,000
101...................................10,000
151+ ................................15,000


It would be a Class of ATP license (A,B,C) and it would allow a experienced pilot to get rehired as a Captain. Any airline that was expanding quickly would want to hire laid-off pilots with flight time. Any LCC or code-share airline would have to have experienced pilots and not 20 somethings out of flight school.


While I agree with the ATP thing, those upgrade times aren't all that smart. Once you get above around 5000 hours you should be worth your salt...and if not there will be some other indicators.

DAWGS 09-08-2009 10:11 AM


Originally Posted by slowplay (Post 674947)
Anyone who can think....nice!

The only metric where DCI is "growing" is ASMs. They are carrying some passengers longer distances, but their total share of passengers is declining. Mainline domestic block hours went from 51.5% to 56.2% of total system domestic block hours from January 07 through March 09.

Oh, even thought they now have 153 of the new 76 seat jets, their total aircraft count is down over 100. That means 250+ of their "old" aircraft have been parked. They're shrinking, and shrinking aggressively.

Anyone who can think will look at facts and not let emotional spin get in the way of their "I don't like it" rants.

Nobody is saying you have to like it. Let's just deal with real data, please.

Thanks for making my point with ASMs. And why did you stop thru March 09 numbers? Why start with January 07? I say that to say numbers don't paint the whole picture. You are providing a statistic looking at a small window.

A better rolling number would be how many times this administration has caved when it comes to scope. Since I'm so emotional, put this in your pipe and smoke it, scope is not to be negotiated. Not for better furlough protection, not for better pay, not because of 1113, or whatever you can come up with. Continue to justify this administration's weak stance on scope, you are succesfully making my point on why we desperately need change.

By the way, emotion is a good thing. We need a lot more of it. It balances the playing field. The team without emotion usually loses. Right now this administration is playing managements game and we are getting our emotionless a$$es handed to us.

acl65pilot 09-08-2009 10:18 AM

And while the company is retreating to DCI hulls, lets take back that ground!

I do not think that people have an issue that those jets are flying for Delta. The issue is that there are not Delta pilots flying those jets.


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