Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
06-30-2014 | 12:53 PM
Line Holder
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 833
Likes: 5
From: Captain
I'm not trying to change the topic, but I do have a proposal for C2015:
While our reserve system is much better than it has been, it still isn't as good as I think it can/should be. I would love it if reserves could:
1.) Pick up trips from open time before they are assigned a day out. I think United pilots can pick up trips 3 days out.
2.) Yellow slip for trips that are not in their silos and get them over pilots who have no yellow slip preference in.
While #1 might be a longshot, #2 shouldn't be.
I know the company thinks they want to match with reserves according to what silo they are, but in my category, I've seen a lot of pilots get assigned trip back to back to back, while others just sit there. There were three trips I YS'ed last week that went to reserves in the 4 day silo while I sat in the 5 day silo. All three of them were later called in fatigued (and after looking at the pilots schedules, I don't blame them.). What I'm seeing is that FAR117 is making fatigue calls more likely.
Maybe allowing pilots to YS trips outside of their SILO might help everyone.
Any thoughts?
While our reserve system is much better than it has been, it still isn't as good as I think it can/should be. I would love it if reserves could:
1.) Pick up trips from open time before they are assigned a day out. I think United pilots can pick up trips 3 days out.
2.) Yellow slip for trips that are not in their silos and get them over pilots who have no yellow slip preference in.
While #1 might be a longshot, #2 shouldn't be.
I know the company thinks they want to match with reserves according to what silo they are, but in my category, I've seen a lot of pilots get assigned trip back to back to back, while others just sit there. There were three trips I YS'ed last week that went to reserves in the 4 day silo while I sat in the 5 day silo. All three of them were later called in fatigued (and after looking at the pilots schedules, I don't blame them.). What I'm seeing is that FAR117 is making fatigue calls more likely.
Maybe allowing pilots to YS trips outside of their SILO might help everyone.
Any thoughts?
06-30-2014 | 12:54 PM
No longer cares
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 12,109
Likes: 0
From: 767er Captain
You talk really big, but you don't back it up. Accuse me of selling concessions... let's get it on.
Or are you scared?
We can even have jury selection to see if I break the rules. I figure we can come up with 5 people on here to judge whether or not I was selling anything. You are so confident, you have nothing to lose.
Last edited by tsquare; 06-30-2014 at 01:19 PM.
06-30-2014 | 01:37 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,619
Likes: 0
If you want to figure out the productivity gains from pay banding you would start with the average number of non-new hire pilots that are in the upgrade training pipeline (from initial academics through IOE completion) on any given day. Continuing qualification training would not count as that would stay unchanged with pay banding.
You would use a daily average because we have training starting and ending each day of the month and a variable amount of crews are in training in any one day. You would exclude new hires because no matter what the pay structure is, you will have to give them training when they get hired.
My guess is the daily average is in the 100-150 pilot range. It was lower before but training has been going up lately. Maybe someone with training center connections has a better number.
For the sake of discussion, let's use 150. If you go to pay banding, you will not be able to eliminate all training, because pilots will still jump between bands and from first officer to Captain. Let's estimate that we would save 1/3 of training by going to pay banding. That means you would save on average 50 pilots per year from pay banding.
If you try to say it's 1800 pilots, that means you would estimate that there are 5400 pilots in training at any one time, again assuming you save 1/3 of the training events. Even if you predict you will save 100% of training events (an impossibility unless you lock every new hire into one seat, including Captain seats, and keep them there until retirement) you would need to average 1800 pilots a day in training to save 1800 jobs. In other words, every Delta pilot would change jobs in 12 months or less. That does not seem plausible.
Attack away, but at least attack with facts not wild hyperbole.
06-30-2014 | 01:37 PM
Can't abide NAI
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 12,078
Likes: 15
From: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Codeshare Partners ..bye bye
I just love Austrailian reporting ...
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign owned Etihad Airways is ready to go where most airlines would fear to fly, with a major investment in Italy flag carrier Alitalia.
In a statement last night Etihad said:
Alitalia and Etihad Airways today confirmed that they have agreed the principal terms and conditions of a proposed transaction whereby Etihad Airways will acquire a 49 per cent equity stake in Alitalia.
The airlines will now move to finalise the transactional documents, that will include the agreed upon conditions, as soon as possible. The conclusion of the investment is subject to final regulatory approvals.
If the deal goes ahead, and most of the European media sees this as a near certaintly, Etihad will significantly add depth to and expand the scope of, its strategy of building a world wide web of airline investments, which recently includes 21.24 percent of Virgin Australia with permission to take that to 22.9 percent.
In European terms, a 49 per cent owned and definitely controlled Alitalia will fly alongside 29.21 percent of AirBerlin, 4.1 percent of Aer Lingus (alongside a larger stake held by Ryanair), 49 per cent of Air Serbia and 34 percent of Swiss turbo prop regional Darwin Airline.
The move is yet again being criticised by Germany’s largest full service airline Lufthansa but not so far by Lufthansa rival Air France KLM, in which the Air France brand has important code share arrangements with Etihad.
While the Alitalia move is unlikely to have much immediate effect on the Australia market if it goes ahead as expected, it may cause a reappraisal in this country of the serious intent of Etihad to be a global player, which has largely been ignored in industry analysis in this part of the world.
Etihad is a very different entity in business behaviour to its larger neighbouring UAE carrier, Dubai based Emirates. Where Etihad is buying into the fabric of aviation on a world scale with current emphasis on Europe, India and Australia, the Emirates business has been built on a monolithic strategy of creating a massive fleet of aircraft, including the world’s largest squadrons of Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s, running in parallel with the massive sovereign investment the owners of the airline have separately made in Dubai as a port and in maritime facilities world wide.
In the case of Alitalia, the deal showed signs of not going ahead at various times, and the negotiations went on far longer than anyone had expected. It is reasonable to conclude that Etihad has extracted from Alitalia agreement for some very thorough and painful reconstructions of its business, which was widely reported in Europe as being headed for yet another bankruptcy or complete failure. And as soon as this August, according to some reports.
The Alitalia that Etihad will reconstruct is the 2009 entity that was bought by private capital from the ruins of the previous historic Alitalia that had a long association with Australia from the 60s through to the 90s. Alitalia was the first international airline to use Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport, and the first to bring a Boeing 747 to Canberra (on 22 November 1977), even though it was on fire at the time and making an emergency landing.
In a statement last night Etihad said:
Alitalia and Etihad Airways today confirmed that they have agreed the principal terms and conditions of a proposed transaction whereby Etihad Airways will acquire a 49 per cent equity stake in Alitalia.
The airlines will now move to finalise the transactional documents, that will include the agreed upon conditions, as soon as possible. The conclusion of the investment is subject to final regulatory approvals.
If the deal goes ahead, and most of the European media sees this as a near certaintly, Etihad will significantly add depth to and expand the scope of, its strategy of building a world wide web of airline investments, which recently includes 21.24 percent of Virgin Australia with permission to take that to 22.9 percent.
In European terms, a 49 per cent owned and definitely controlled Alitalia will fly alongside 29.21 percent of AirBerlin, 4.1 percent of Aer Lingus (alongside a larger stake held by Ryanair), 49 per cent of Air Serbia and 34 percent of Swiss turbo prop regional Darwin Airline.
The move is yet again being criticised by Germany’s largest full service airline Lufthansa but not so far by Lufthansa rival Air France KLM, in which the Air France brand has important code share arrangements with Etihad.
While the Alitalia move is unlikely to have much immediate effect on the Australia market if it goes ahead as expected, it may cause a reappraisal in this country of the serious intent of Etihad to be a global player, which has largely been ignored in industry analysis in this part of the world.
Etihad is a very different entity in business behaviour to its larger neighbouring UAE carrier, Dubai based Emirates. Where Etihad is buying into the fabric of aviation on a world scale with current emphasis on Europe, India and Australia, the Emirates business has been built on a monolithic strategy of creating a massive fleet of aircraft, including the world’s largest squadrons of Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s, running in parallel with the massive sovereign investment the owners of the airline have separately made in Dubai as a port and in maritime facilities world wide.
In the case of Alitalia, the deal showed signs of not going ahead at various times, and the negotiations went on far longer than anyone had expected. It is reasonable to conclude that Etihad has extracted from Alitalia agreement for some very thorough and painful reconstructions of its business, which was widely reported in Europe as being headed for yet another bankruptcy or complete failure. And as soon as this August, according to some reports.
The Alitalia that Etihad will reconstruct is the 2009 entity that was bought by private capital from the ruins of the previous historic Alitalia that had a long association with Australia from the 60s through to the 90s. Alitalia was the first international airline to use Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport, and the first to bring a Boeing 747 to Canberra (on 22 November 1977), even though it was on fire at the time and making an emergency landing.
06-30-2014 | 01:45 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 3,108
Likes: 0
None of my posts have anything to do with DPA.
Let's focus on you and sailing not selling concessions during record profits.
06-30-2014 | 01:48 PM
Line Holder
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 864
Likes: 50
From: B767
The Big Machine
There are days when you realize that no matter what you are part of a big and often heartless profit machine. As many of you in SEC country are probably aware former Auburn University TE Philip Lutzenkirchen was killed in a car accident very early Sunday morning. Though our time at Auburn did not overlap (I'm a bit older than Lutz) the younger brother of one of my closest friends did become roommates with Philip for several years. This younger brother is going to be married in August and the customary bachelor party in Las Vegas was scheduled for the July 4th weekend, Philip was scheduled to attend the bachelor party (had a ticket booked with Delta) and was supposed to be a groomsman in the wedding.
The party is scheduled to fly out of MSY to LAS on Thursday via LAX on Delta. The brother of my friend will now be traveling to ATL to attend the funeral services for Lutz on Wednesday and called Delta to try and change the first segment of his itinerary so that he could fly out of ATL instead of MSY. In order to do this Delta will charge my friend $320 to make up the fare difference. He was initially told he would be charged an additional $200 change fee though it was subsequently decided that if he would provide the name of the deceased, name of funeral home, and phone number of funeral director that they would change this.
I realize that there are bad people who would attempt to defraud Delta Air Lines by using the "my friend died" excuse. However, in this and all sincerely tragic circumstances it is sad to see the profit machine in work when there are flights with seats available.
Just an observation and this type of scenario is likely not unique to Delta. A tragic circumstance for these young men, not being made any easier by the airlines.
UA
The party is scheduled to fly out of MSY to LAS on Thursday via LAX on Delta. The brother of my friend will now be traveling to ATL to attend the funeral services for Lutz on Wednesday and called Delta to try and change the first segment of his itinerary so that he could fly out of ATL instead of MSY. In order to do this Delta will charge my friend $320 to make up the fare difference. He was initially told he would be charged an additional $200 change fee though it was subsequently decided that if he would provide the name of the deceased, name of funeral home, and phone number of funeral director that they would change this.
I realize that there are bad people who would attempt to defraud Delta Air Lines by using the "my friend died" excuse. However, in this and all sincerely tragic circumstances it is sad to see the profit machine in work when there are flights with seats available.
Just an observation and this type of scenario is likely not unique to Delta. A tragic circumstance for these young men, not being made any easier by the airlines.
UA
06-30-2014 | 01:48 PM
Can't abide NAI
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 12,078
Likes: 15
From: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Without any comment on the wisdom of pay banding, at least the discussion should center around the facts rather than wild speculation.
If you want to figure out the productivity gains from pay banding you would start with the average number of non-new hire pilots that are in the upgrade training pipeline (from initial academics through IOE completion) on any given day. Continuing qualification training would not count as that would stay unchanged with pay banding.
You would use a daily average because we have training starting and ending each day of the month and a variable amount of crews are in training in any one day. You would exclude new hires because no matter what the pay structure is, you will have to give them training when they get hired.
My guess is the daily average is in the 100-150 pilot range. It was lower before but training has been going up lately. Maybe someone with training center connections has a better number.
For the sake of discussion, let's use 150. If you go to pay banding, you will not be able to eliminate all training, because pilots will still jump between bands and from first officer to Captain. Let's estimate that we would save 1/3 of training by going to pay banding. That means you would save on average 50 pilots per year from pay banding.
If you try to say it's 1800 pilots, that means you would estimate that there are 5400 pilots in training at any one time, again assuming you save 1/3 of the training events. Even if you predict you will save 100% of training events (an impossibility unless you lock every new hire into one seat, including Captain seats, and keep them there until retirement) you would need to average 1800 pilots a day in training to save 1800 jobs. In other words, every Delta pilot would change jobs in 12 months or less. That does not seem plausible.
Attack away, but at least attack with facts not wild hyperbole.
If you want to figure out the productivity gains from pay banding you would start with the average number of non-new hire pilots that are in the upgrade training pipeline (from initial academics through IOE completion) on any given day. Continuing qualification training would not count as that would stay unchanged with pay banding.
You would use a daily average because we have training starting and ending each day of the month and a variable amount of crews are in training in any one day. You would exclude new hires because no matter what the pay structure is, you will have to give them training when they get hired.
My guess is the daily average is in the 100-150 pilot range. It was lower before but training has been going up lately. Maybe someone with training center connections has a better number.
For the sake of discussion, let's use 150. If you go to pay banding, you will not be able to eliminate all training, because pilots will still jump between bands and from first officer to Captain. Let's estimate that we would save 1/3 of training by going to pay banding. That means you would save on average 50 pilots per year from pay banding.
If you try to say it's 1800 pilots, that means you would estimate that there are 5400 pilots in training at any one time, again assuming you save 1/3 of the training events. Even if you predict you will save 100% of training events (an impossibility unless you lock every new hire into one seat, including Captain seats, and keep them there until retirement) you would need to average 1800 pilots a day in training to save 1800 jobs. In other words, every Delta pilot would change jobs in 12 months or less. That does not seem plausible.
Attack away, but at least attack with facts not wild hyperbole.
- How would pay banding effect us in a category and status merger?
- What are the effects on top line scope of pay banding (JV negotiations)?
- What are the effects on small jet (permitted flying arrangements) as a result of pay banding?
- What is our competitive environment? What are other airlines doing?
What are your preliminary thoughts on pay banding's effects on mergers and scope negotiations? If we combined pay banding with scope recapture, I could be sold on the idea.
Back of the napkin math; I figure 2% or 3% could be recaptured from pilot pay, DGS and Delta resources for this change. That's less than my cable TV bill in after-tax money. If there is an extrinsic virtue here, it needs to be considered.
06-30-2014 | 01:49 PM
Da Hudge
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 17,473
Likes: 0
From: Poodle Whisperer
Is a run of the mill line check airman a management tool? If so, then yes tsquare and sailing are management tools.
You cheapen your message when you throw the management tool thing around so flippantly.
06-30-2014 | 01:56 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 3,108
Likes: 0
Without any comment on the wisdom of pay banding, at least the discussion should center around the facts rather than wild speculation.
If you want to figure out the productivity gains from pay banding you would start with the average number of non-new hire pilots that are in the upgrade training pipeline (from initial academics through IOE completion) on any given day. Continuing qualification training would not count as that would stay unchanged with pay banding.
You would use a daily average because we have training starting and ending each day of the month and a variable amount of crews are in training in any one day. You would exclude new hires because no matter what the pay structure is, you will have to give them training when they get hired.
My guess is the daily average is in the 100-150 pilot range. It was lower before but training has been going up lately. Maybe someone with training center connections has a better number.
For the sake of discussion, let's use 150. If you go to pay banding, you will not be able to eliminate all training, because pilots will still jump between bands and from first officer to Captain. Let's estimate that we would save 1/3 of training by going to pay banding. That means you would save on average 50 pilots per year from pay banding.
If you try to say it's 1800 pilots, that means you would estimate that there are 5400 pilots in training at any one time, again assuming you save 1/3 of the training events. Even if you predict you will save 100% of training events (an impossibility unless you lock every new hire into one seat, including Captain seats, and keep them there until retirement) you would need to average 1800 pilots a day in training to save 1800 jobs. In other words, every Delta pilot would change jobs in 12 months or less. That does not seem plausible.
Attack away, but at least attack with facts not wild hyperbole.
If you want to figure out the productivity gains from pay banding you would start with the average number of non-new hire pilots that are in the upgrade training pipeline (from initial academics through IOE completion) on any given day. Continuing qualification training would not count as that would stay unchanged with pay banding.
You would use a daily average because we have training starting and ending each day of the month and a variable amount of crews are in training in any one day. You would exclude new hires because no matter what the pay structure is, you will have to give them training when they get hired.
My guess is the daily average is in the 100-150 pilot range. It was lower before but training has been going up lately. Maybe someone with training center connections has a better number.
For the sake of discussion, let's use 150. If you go to pay banding, you will not be able to eliminate all training, because pilots will still jump between bands and from first officer to Captain. Let's estimate that we would save 1/3 of training by going to pay banding. That means you would save on average 50 pilots per year from pay banding.
If you try to say it's 1800 pilots, that means you would estimate that there are 5400 pilots in training at any one time, again assuming you save 1/3 of the training events. Even if you predict you will save 100% of training events (an impossibility unless you lock every new hire into one seat, including Captain seats, and keep them there until retirement) you would need to average 1800 pilots a day in training to save 1800 jobs. In other words, every Delta pilot would change jobs in 12 months or less. That does not seem plausible.
Attack away, but at least attack with facts not wild hyperbole.
Let's say we have 900 retirements in 12 months. Each retirement results in 6 initial training events. 5400 initial training events. Pay banding will mitigate this in a huge way. Again I estimate 8 to 10 initials per retirement.
The major point is why make concessions during record profits?
Jerry
Last edited by 80ktsClamp; 06-30-2014 at 06:35 PM.
06-30-2014 | 01:57 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 6,844
Likes: 0
From: 765-A
I think I'm on his side, for the most part. But, then I read that, and I'm against him.
We should be aiming high for the next contract (max pay, work rules, benefits, vacation, etc.). We shouldn't be aiming at each other.
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