Airline Pilot Central Forums - Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?

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- - Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta? (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/delta/36912-any-latest-greatest-about-delta.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 796324)

I don't know if you are a captain or not, but I will tell you this: When I checked out a few years back, the In Command class (knife and fork school for new captains) got a visit from Greg Riggs who was at the time the Counsel General at DAL. After his little talk, I didn't EVER want to turn off the seat belt light. It's no red herring. It's very very real, and there are lawsuits. Can you imagine the financial liability to DAL if there is ever a procedural misstep that Boeing did not sanction and resulted in injury or worse? Now since we are using BA procedures and operations manuals, it's all on them. I really liked the DAL manuals we had before the BA change.. probably like you like the NWA manuals better: things were easy to find... they were more logical.. etc etc... But the fact is that all lawyers suck and they make the rules so we all have to deal with it.. unfortunately.

Yes, I'm a Captain, and yes I get the whole liability thing, and as mentioned earlier, DAL's nor counsels legal concerns are unique - yet MOST other airlines use thier own acft and training manuals. They are FAA approved after all.

Using manufacturer manuals is primarily a cost saving issue IMO, and frankly an inferior, lowest common denominator solution. If the legal concerns are so enormous why is no one else doing it? We must be industry leading :cool:.

Of course all those arguments would also support anything sold under the DAL brand to be flown by DAL pilots on DAL mainline equipment to DAL standards ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by forgot to bid (Post 796187)

Are they as hot there as pilots claim? :D

At least you know if World War III starts you'll be safe... as for the rest of us? :rolleyes:

Nyet... they are all fat.. ugly and have few teeth. If you want to see a stateside similar example, just go to my homestate of Kentucky.

T;
RA commented on 86 per bbl as the forecast for the year 2010. 50% hedged.

As for the PWA, the company seems to be hinting at want to start talks early and have an agreement on or before the amendable date. I have words used like best contract ever, but as you know the proof is in the pudding.

IMO, I am all for getting the PWA done on time. I prefer a shorter duration, and I want to see sizable improvement in many areas of the PWA. It is my belief that we can LOA a lot of the issues in many of our sections and leave the biggies to the section six talks. That way we have a manageable amount of items.
There are a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves as a group going in to 2012. We have made an investment in the corporation, and as the corporation returns to profitability we want our chunk. I believe that we are all in agreement of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TANSTAAFL (Post 796333)

I don't necessarily disagree on some of your points, buit it would be nice to use the BA checklist that is laminated to the yoke for landing.. what.. 3 or four items instead of the novel we have to read every time? Inferior? naaaaah ain't buying that one, but the idea of training to the LCD is not necessarily a bad one. Think of the alternative. It makes all the Chuck Yeagers out there look really good. Add to that a trip to Walmart, and you will be Yeager, Hawking and Charles Atlas all rolled into one. What's not to like? And I have never flown it, but I would have to buy new stronger glasses to read the mad dog checklist... ugh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TANSTAAFL (Post 796333)

Yes, I'm a Captain, and yes I get the whole liability thing, and as mentioned earlier, DAL's nor counsels legal concerns are unique - yet MOST other airlines use their own acft and training manuals. They are FAA approved after all.

Using manufacturer manuals is primarily a cost saving issue IMO, and frankly an inferior, lowest common denominator solution. If the legal concerns are so enormous why is no one else doing it? We must be industry leading :cool:.

Of course all those arguments would also support anything sold under the DAL brand to be flown by DAL pilots on DAL mainline equipment to DAL standards ;)

I do not beleive that we are using the Boeing manuals dot for dot and dash for dash. The point was and is that our procedures and maneuvers do not contradict their best practices or what they have in their master pubs.

T;
You know that the font and type set on the abbreviated check lists is controlled by the FAA. Actually reproductions to smaller sizes are not permitted. :rolleyes:
You could read it, it would just take longer.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 796331)

PLease keep this kind of thought process around while you are bolstering up the arguments as to why we need pay increases in 2015. Same story, different characters.

According to RA at the LCP meeting, we are about 50% hedged, but I do not remember the period. When I get my notes, I will let you know what he said for sure.

2nd and 3rd qtr.

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowplay (Post 796315)

Pilots give DT a bunch of crap all the time, but I remind you to compare how the IT integration has gone compared to our peers. No USAirways merger meltdown. JetBlue had trouble changing to Sabre. How about a few props for the folks that are actually making that portion of the business work, so we can kevetch about dual releases and single engine taxi...;)

Good post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 796325)

Worldflight is no more. ain't coming back. sorry

Worldflight is still running today. Compass and Mesaba use it for a lot of thingd that the Delta systems don't provide to their feeders.

Quote:

Originally Posted by acl65pilot (Post 796320)

They have done a good job and made the right decision at the right time based upon the time they had allotted to make the system work.

One thing that has been stated on here that many do not seem to grasp is DAL IT and infrastructure, accounting, reservations, part stores programs etc are linked to SAP.

A little background on SAP. Generally speaking, once the SAP template is designed for a company or a BU it is in effect matured. My wives company converted to SAP a little over a year ago, and let me tell you, SAP and the templates that it uses do not just get changed. If DAL were to go down that avenue, it would literally have to relicense the SAP software, and start anew with rebuilding the templates that each BU, sub BU department etc would use. It is very prohibitive. SAP is a great program, but you literally need to get it right the first time. Changing it is a pita.

That said, NWA did not run on SAP and therefore many good programs could not even be considered. Their computing functions can be added or integrated in to an existing program like FPS 2.0, PARS or AWABS, but unless DAL is willing to pay for a new SAP template run, they cannot just swap out programs.

SAP is an amazing system when it works. Start tinkering with it, and it will throw garbage at you. Problem with that is that many of the functions, crosstalk etc are done behind the sense and because of this, it is very difficult to find the problematic formula on an up and running system. It can be done, but it is time consuming. I beleive we prefer to deal with what we have, fix what we can within the existing system and slay to competition.
Overall this company has created the road map on how to do integrations.

Everything for the most part went off well below the assumed rate of failure.

Great Post.

It explains a lot of things. Let me read between the lines and say it is much cheaper to adopt the programs we have to run on the IT backbone than to replace the SAP template?