DON'T COMMUTE

DON'T COMMUTE

Just move to Mecca and drive to work......It's not THAT bad!

Save your commuting/hotel/loss of GS money and buy a freaking castle when you retire!

Seriously....Don't commute. You'll live longer!

If the above is correct what is the suppossed upside of this TA?

Scoop

So should I not commute? :)

Where are you getting the 100,000 Block Hour number?

Same question.

Again, same question.

I had to leave the conversation yesterday to go fly right when you answered about 1.E.3 guaranteeing our international flying. I assume that's what you're getting at here? Where does the 100,000 number come from and how are we going to lose all that flying when the language that you posted (only TA language I've seen anywhere, so I'm taking it at face value) describes 2 protections:

1. Global WB Block Hour Protection - could potentially allow Virgin to do all US-UK flying, but we would have to maintain our WB block hours elsewhere, and actually increase them significantly (and at a much higher ratio than Virgin) if Virgin picks up all the flying we currently do. I can see a (highly unlikely) scenario under this protection where we (DL/Virgin) technically could leave the UK market, but that would require Virgin to basically shut down for that to happen.

2. LHR Slot Protection - This piece requires that we maintain 5860 flights until 2020 in/out of LHR specifically - it doesn't include the rest of our UK flying. We (DL) can't leave the UK market under the language you posted.

They could reduce Delta LHR flights down from our current annual 7,000+ (best # I was able to get is either 7,100 or 7,700 flights - can't read my own chicken scratch notes :D ) to 5,860. However, that would require the JV to either reduce together (meaning Virgin's WB block hours would have to go way down to keep our Global Protection in compliance), OR grow our WB block hours elsewhere (at approximately 3-1 ratio) as Virgin filled in LHR flights that we would have to vacate.


More to follow...

Without a TA, our current scope language would prevent them from ever operating less block hours between the U.S. and UK than we are currently operating, or they'd have to end the JV. However, with our current scope language, they could grow Virgin unlimited and grow us zero as long as they didn't shrink our block hours from present. In other words, our current language gives us our current level as a floor, but would allow them not to share growth with us.

With this new TA, we share in growth after Virgin Atlantic grows about 5% higher from where they are now. We paid for that promise of growth sharing by allowing the company to shrink our global level of international block hours by about 100,000 hours or year. But we currently don't have a global level of block hours that we 're guaranteed. In other words, this new language allows us to share growth after Virgin grows an additional 5%, in return for a global minimum of international flying that is 100,000 hours per year lower than we're currently flying.

It's essentially a bet on growth. If Virgin grows more than 5%, then we share that growth. If we shrink, the company can shrink us by 100,000 international block hours per year AND keep the virgin JV. If we kept our current language and they reduced our block hours at all between the US and U.K., they'd have to give up the JV.

Carl

I was asked not to share my source and I will honor that. Our reps know the number, but the MEC administration has prohibited them from releasing that data until after the TA is voted in.

As an interesting aside. Georgetg used previously posted data, used some napkin math, and came up with a number that was ridiculously close to what I was shown.

We are agreeing to a global international flying floor (that we don't currently have), that is about 100,000 block hours less than what we are currently flying.

Carl

duplicate post

And at the investor presentation yesterday they said most of the 2015 growth in this JV will be on VA metal. You know we will go down to that floor. That is why they need this TA passed now and don't want any pushback before they vote it in.

I think that's probably right, but it's also possible we see nothing but growth. Good people can disagree.

What is absolutely intolerable is the MEC administration's decision to withhold this data from us until after the TA passes. They're doing this because they feel we line pilots undercut them during the FAR 117 negotiations where we forced the administration back to the table to remove CDO's. They're afraid we'd focus on the possible loss of 100,000 international block hours and scuttle the deal. So they've chosen to hide it from us and prohibit reps from releasing it.

And how are we responding to this? By re-electing Donatelli. We're not only going to approve this TA, but we're telling Donatelli he's doing the right thing by hiding data from us.

Carl

Anyone have any gouge on bringing family with on a FCO trip? How is the NH about accommodating family? Any tips on transportation to/from the airport? Is the ER getting any load optimization out of FCO lately?

Thanks for any info..