Sailing,

I too was thinking about that. We did 100 month as stand alone DAL before the merger. But I was in the room when SD put out that we can train 60 month indefinitely and surge well above that at times for close to 1000 year.

So what changed since 97-2001? The only thing that quickly jumps to mind is no more Engineers. I imagine that 85-90% of new hires going to SO probably made things easier - more classroom time and less total time in the box. Other than that most things that changed should make trainer quicker - more CD self study etc.

FWIW - I think that training capacity will not be an issue and 100% agree - no help from us required.

Scoop

Shoes must be on sale at Nordstroms. :rolleyes:

I thnk 2.7 million is a correct number. Leo Mullins held a huge number of options and lost it all in the Chapter 11. That is why I think he tried so hard to avoid filing and waited until cash was at a dangerous level.
When management holds a large number in stock and options I think it causes them to focus to much on near term stock value and not enough on long term strategic planning. I see that in our current fleet plan.

Just to be fair... it looks like the shares she "disposed of" were donated to charities.

Although I doubt she will have to go barefoot.

I think these big money guys do this for tax reasons. They get the full value of the shares as a deduction but they only counted the original grant price as their income. Sweet deal.

Quick math: Let's say they hire 1000 a year. Now let's say they spread the new hires across 5 fleets: 717, MD88, 737, A320, 767. That only requires training 200 per year, into each fleet. That's roughly 16.6 per month into each fleet.

Now, how many sims do we have for each fleet? I don't know. But in addition to new hires, you also have to do recurrent training in those sims, plus the guys swapping seats.

So what is the total number of sims in each fleet, vs. the amount of upgrade training, plus recurrent, plus new hires? And is the training footprint still about 8 sim periods for an initial?

Stuff like that also gets you on the board of charities, into swanky events... more power and prestige. That's how the game is played.

I also heard that it was because we used to get sim time in MIA and elsewhere too. (Remember the sims at Greenwood or whatever that place was?) But now that everybody is hiring, unused sim time is at a premium if it is available at all... Newhires can train on the backside of the clock. It'll be good for 'em. :D

I get that a large portion of the CEO's compensation is based on stock and options. Are you advocating that a large portion of our compensation package be made of "at risk" dollars? I have heard quite a few pilots advocate just that, others want straight pay in their check.

I do believe if you are going to start using stock etc in a compensation comparison, one needs to be consistent and willing to accept it themselves.

I'd take a from of compensatory stock grants like they get in lieu of pay in the next contract. As long as they were non restricted. Maybe that $2 billion in stock buyback can be transferred to us at the buyback rates. :)

You will get straight pay on the portion of any GS to get you to the trigger and double pay on any amount above the trigger. The exact amount can be determined be looking closely at the lower portion of your timecard. Don't forget about the bank option to get to the trigger.