Are you supposed to be posting that, Sailing?

 

What do you mean by "back fills"? Never heard that term before.

 

Ah, I see. There used to be a page with the lower fares and instructions on how the JV thing worked.

Found it. Search for "JV Fares" and the second hit is what you're looking for. OA - ZED / JV Fare Chart. JV is about half price or so.

 

Thanks sailingfun, somehow I missed that CR blurb--thought I'd read all the verbage that came out with this AE and the Jan letter. That's marginally enough to keep my beaten-down hope alive as a wee ember.

Martin404, "backfill" means fill a position vacated when someone moves up.
The THEORY of seniority that this pyramid scheme all hangs on, is that the top senior guys will someday retire, and folks from below them will flow up into the senior spots. The ASSUMPTION we always made was that those lucky folks would leave their positions vacant, and that the company would BACKFILL those positions with other guys from below, who would leave open spots, which would be backfilled from below, etc.

When the airline keeps the same # of pilots, and guys retire off the top, the airline must hire the exact same # of new guys. It SHOULD result in everyone from top to bottom moving UP, increasing their Quality of Life, and the bottom-rung water-boys get to move up and have their heinous lot in life filled by NEW GUYS.

That's NOT what we're seeing at Delta however. Despite all the hoopla on "we're hiring!!" and "Big retirements coming soon!", the fact of the numbers is this: As guys retire out the top, OR as new pilot positions are created by Delta acquiring new jets, we are NOT "backfilling" those positions with an equal number of new guys. In fact, we are actually shrinking the airline by just not backfilling the top spots that empty out, currently at the 7ER f/o positions. The ILLUSION is being marketed that we're all moving up and things are improving... but the diligent tracking of the numbers shows that in fact the bottom of the list is not moving at all, as we shrink the 7ER category faster than new planes arrive, and thus shrink the pilot list faster than retirements are happening. Even the hiring succumbs to this illusion--we're hiring yes, but we're hiring LESS than the growth in aircraft would indicate we should... because what's really happening is we are shrinking the middle of the list faster than we're hiring to replace it.

So, say we retire 100 pilots and gain aircraft that should generate 200 pilot slots, that's 300 new pilots that should be needed to keep everyone stable without movement up or down. But we're hiring 80 (in this example, whose numbers are made up to illustrate the point for you). So, we get told this rosy-looking sunshine marketing hooplah: "Hey! We're finally hiring, new guys coming in below you, will push you up!" "Hey, new jets coming on board, we're gonna grow!" "Hey, guys are retiring, good days ahead!". But the truth is that all these are half-truth illusions that mask the REAL truth: we're shrinking faster than any of those growths, and we're doing it by more efficiencies. Delta desires to have fewer total pilots doing the same work, and we're getting there AE by AE. The truth of this shrinking is being well masked by the company and parroted by our union analysts. We are in essence just like the shopper that pays double for something because it was MARKED at triple price, then a salesman tells us, "30% off sale! Smoking deal for you!" and we "hyuck hyuck, garsh I'll take two of them!".
;O

 

Off topic...what's the best way to get from EWR to LGA (or JFK if easier). Cheers!

 

Best way? There are options.

Crew Runner if you time it right. The schedule is under IFS, NYC Base, on deltanet

NYC Airporter (there is no benefit to buying online)

NJ Transit to Penn Station, E Train to Jackson Heights, Q33 Bus to LGA

Cab

 

Thanks! Just looking for the quickest way around 4pm.

 

Your whole statement makes no sense. If we were shrinking faster then any growth there would be no hiring. We will hire 600 guys in the next year while we retire 150. Since the contract was signed we have increased the number of Captains by well over 300.
What I think you know is that we were overmanned by at least 800 FO's. At many airlines and probably Delta if not for some great anti furlough provisions in the contract those 800 pilots would have been on the street since 09. Would you consider it growth if they had furloughed those pilots and now were recalling them in mass? The addition of almost 300 plus Captains and the same number of copilot jobs since the contract was signed has given us over 700 additional jobs. With the limited retirements we have wiped out the surplus we had. That is the reason we are now hiring.
The rant about not back filling the narrow body positions is also not logical. The fact is no one bid those seats. They will be filled by the new hire classes. That's a great thing and exactly what you want to see when a bid result comes out.

 

Unless they don't backfill narrowbody positions in places like LAX and SLC. There has got to be somebody who has an AE in for those positions so for them not to backfill those kinda stinks. What we want to see is backfills everywhere except NYC and DTW, then we will know it is because nobody is bidding the positions.

 

As usual, you break up the totals into small chunks with emotional impact ("captains") that you can point at and say are increasing, and neglect the big picture.

I pointed out the hiring fallacy. If you gain enough aircraft to require 200 pilots, but you only hire 100, then you are in fact shrinking by 100 from a "status quo" where no one moves.

Busy now, but I will post the total # of pilots from the lists at various points in time over the last few years. They are clearly shrinking. You will then go, "Oh hey, but we were overmanned by FIRST OFFICERS, of course we had to shrink THEM, it's just good business", as if you didn't just say EXACTLY what I did but with a positive spin on it.