Or you could just accept the fact that people got their panties in a wad over nothing. For the sake of intellectual honesty, it's OK to admit one jumped the gun.

Or you can accuse the object of the rumor to be the cause of the rumor.

I guess you're not paranoid if they're not out to get you, but someone on the internet says they're out to get you...

Not to argue but point out the math being presented at recurrent:

Right now there are 68 DC-9's (give or take a few as spares, mx, etc.)
34 are -50's; all painted, most with new seats, and all planned for wi-fi this summer.

The other 34 will go away sometime in the next 12-14 months, but:

Right now they are flying the fleet at around 4.5 hours average a day; tech ops hazards to guess they could support up to and over 6 hrs a day. (a 50% increase) And they could firm up the flying as they park the smaller ones, smoothing it out, if you will.

So best case scenario, they would still need ~75% or so of the current DC-9 pilots for a worked-to-the-bone all -50 fleet. Of course worst case is oil back at $150/bbl and they all get parked.

I don't think the draw-down in DC-9 pilots will be as fast as some have predicted. (We did finally get our own little icon on the Flt Ops page!)

The economy is the real decider; the Diesel 9 is the flex fleet.

My take..

Trust but verify. Being paranoid on all this that involve our contract is good. It means ppl are engaged.

I don't think you will see a DC-9 reduction in this bid. Even though the company gets a year window they normally don't use it. They can post bids anytime they want. If they decide to surplus -9 pilots they can post a bid in July or Aug to accomplish that. I don't see them tying their hands now and posting it this far out. They also have a history of simply letting people bid off and not replacing them rather then posting surpluses. There might be a bit of a pleasant surprise on this bid and overall there might be some upward movement that could clear some people off the nine.

Fmla
 

Murray Bill To Extend Family Leave Benefits To Flight Crews Passes Congress

12/2/2009 3:30 PM ET TOP MARKET NEWSponsored By (RTTNews) - Senate HELP Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., announced Wednesday that her bill to provide flight crews with family leave has passed Congress and is on its way to President Barack Obama.

The legislation, called the Airline Flight Crew Technical Correction Act, will make flight attendants and pilots eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave time each year under the Family and Medical Leave Acthttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif.

The bill clarifies the FMLA to accommodate flight attendants and pilots who, because of their industries' unique calculation of work hours spent on overnights, layovers and waiting to be called to duty, currently do not qualify for leave time.

"This is a big victory for our nation's hard-working flight crews," Murray said. "Pilots and flight attendants deserve the same ability to balance work and family guaranteed to millions of Americans, and now they'll have it."

Sailing I am hearing the same thing about the bid. The company may have solved the ATL issue with the 765 leaving, and that would be good for all.

There many also be a few other things here and there, that make this better than where things were heading a week or so ago. All conjure until the bid posts. From what I am hearing they may even modify it mid bid as well....

Interesting times.

Thanks again for the reply sailingfun. This AE should be interesting to say the least. Why does the company want the 365 day option? Does it just give them an option to slow training during busy times? Or does it serve another purpose?

Johnso29<---------------Just a Northie trying to learn/understand the new system. :D

The only thing I am elected to is chief trash remover in my house. I do take stupid rumors like this lightly, because they are stupid rumors. Not only that, we have heard a different version of that same story at least half a dozen times in the last four months. The end is always the same "those dirty ALPA guys were going to sell us out, until the junior police showed them how its done" when in fact there never was anything to the story in the first place.

The fact that you can get spun up like this on such a flimsy account is a little funny. I don't take scope lightly, just dumb rumors. If Delta wants to buy E-195's (and they have said many times they don't want those airplanes, they are not economical, in their opinion) you will not hear about it from a guy who knows a guy whose aunt spoke to a friend who works on the fourth floor.

The 365 day bid allows them to get all of the bidding done in one shot and then convert pilots when they need them. For instance, probably some DC-9 30/40's might last through the summer, so they will slowly displace pilots until the end of the summer and then train the rest in September/October/November. With a 270 day bid they would have to run another bid in the spring/summer. That could generate more churn and more training. It decreases training cycles to have everyone jump to their final home in one bid. Especially when there are displacements and entitlements, multiple bids mean more churn. So I disagree with SailingFun, I think we will see DC-9 displacements in this bid. They will probably find homes on the A-320/MD-88.

This is incorrect. RA specifically said last "meeting of the borg" that they would be interested in the 195 however only coupled with short term leases as it does not meet the long term needs of DL.