ACL,

Love your posts but this one is a good reminder to never get investment advice from a pilot.

Agreed. The Delta logo does need to be larger on the 330s and the whale. To much white. Otherwise it does look good. However, the silver paint scheme on the whales and the 330s is hard to beat.

I agree about never taking financial advice from pilots. But if you are looking long term not short term, $8/share is hard to beat. I personally have been burned on airline stocks to often to play them anymore. But there are historically cheap buys out there if you are willing to sift through another 1-2 years of volatility. I'm all about long term so the risk for me is worth it in certain cases.

Rocky,

Age 65 does not mean too much right now for a few reasons. 1) DAL has no one even 59 on staff. 2) Some FNWA guys are actually deciding to retire at 60 since they still have a pension. 3) No data exists (nor will it for at least 4 years) of how many folks will choose not to retire AND be able to hold a first class medical until their 65th bday.

I've been with DAL only 10 months but have already moved up about 45 numbers. Not bad for a co with no scheduled retirements. In a pilot group of over 12k, there will be attrition in the next few years due to a wide variety of factors including retirement, disability, quitting, firing, extended vol/mil leaves amongst others. Just hang on.

the nwa side has more wiggle room because of the increase in aircraft utilization hours and upcoming required increased staffing which would help if the DAL side gets overstaffed. Lets just hope the cutbacks are done.

I was repeating what the street guidance was nothing more. I could not given any other information other than that. It would be against SEC regulations. You know that.

I have also stated that I am betting on DAL stock being North of 20 a share by the end of next year, (2010) That is just my guess.

Uh...I know you mean well Bigflya...but your age 59 comment is simply not true. Look at the retirement list on the crew resources page...it has birthdates...and there are about 60ish on the list who have seen their 60th B-day come and go. You can do a quick cross reference of the Jan seniority list to see most are still flying. More important, I have flown with two over 60 Capts in the last month.

The age limit could be argued as a public safety limitation. The one thing we as a pilot group do not want is a more stringent Class 1. You would not see many guys over 55 flying airplanes. We all know the "cool FAA Doc" who is really just a Class 1 factory. Precise medical tests these days can detect more problems at an earlier stage than ever before. I imagine most of the meds used to for treatment have not been aeronautically cleared. My life insurance guy told me that 40% of his clients under 60 cannot even qualify for long-term care insurance. That's just passing a 20 minute phone screen. IMO, if we see guys trying to open the age rule again they could truely be screwing ALL the pilots to ever come after them. But what do they care, they will most likely already be 60+ and "have theirs." Our unions should not be supportive of such a change.

ITSALLGOOD,

I have to admit your right. Bad math on me. I'm still stuck in 2007. Correct numbers are 5 61 yr olds and 57 60 yr olds. This list is dated Jan2008 and I saw only one pilot retirement in the back of the 4th Q magazine but who knows if any left before that.