Been reading all day long. Just hanging out.

In the ACL household do not out source our work. :D

Great news, there's a DC-4 for sale.

Now, if all of those on airlinepilotforums.com/major/any-latest-greatest-about-delta.html pitch in, we'll but it. We'll call it the spirit of those who talk too much.

Now, its going to cost ole' Carl and Buzz a $140K. Then, you have to let us junior pilots get our grubby hands on it and buzz stuff.

DOUGLAS DC-4/C54B Piston Twin Aircraft For Sale At Controller.com

Because I wanted to make sure I was being impartial to both our Delta and Northwest history, I went and researched and NWA did seem to operate DC-4s. I was afraid it was just the Boeing 337, but I did see DC-4s.

And while researching I came across this, thought you NWA guys might like it:

YouTube - NWA History: Northwest Airlines

http://www.nwahistory.org/videos.htm

Now back to the Southwest Buys AirTran thread where I shall post more about stapling SWA's post 1993 pilots to the bottom of the AAI list for fairness.

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/temp-116.jpg

Interesting points from the Byod Group on the SWA?AirTran deal....
http://www.aviationplanning.com/Imag...rgerReport.pdf

Points For Consideration. Delta ostensibly has higher system CASM than does either AirTran or Southwest. To be sure, the high reliance on RJ lift is cost-problematic for Delta. On the other hand, the real consideration in competing with either AirTran or its successor Southwest will be Delta’s ability to a) gain high levels of flow traffic to buttress nonstop markets where it competes with these airlines, b) attain and maintain a strong yield premium to cover both its higher system costs as well as the much-higher ASM costs in markets where it uses RJ lift to deny AirTran (and in the future, Southwest) market share, and c) maintain high load factors.

The data at hand, illuminating Delta’s performance v AirTran at Atlanta, indicate conclusively that Delta has succeeded in all three considerations. There are no indications that this situation will change when Southwest’s Red Bellied Warriors pull up to the gate.

Heyas FtB,

Here is a slightly longer version of that video. It has some REALLY great vintage clips of the Strat and the Connie.

YouTube - Northwest Airlines- The Sun Will Never Set video

I will ding the company made videos because they seem to leave out the tremendous contribution the Republic side brought. Certainly the character of NWA post-86 was driven by the tremendous domestic network that Republic (and its predecessors) brought, along with North Central's VERY forward thinking IT department. These guys were doing stuff way ahead of the curve, let alone for a outfit the size of NC. That tradition carried through at NWA until the merger.

There is a great NC history page at www.hermantheduck.org. They traced the linage of most of the NC DC-9s, so if you are on one of the -50s, you can look up it's N number and get a page about it, like:

http://www.hermantheduck.org/pages/a...es/n765nc.html

The one item I wish they had kept were the wings. They have tremendous history, dating back to the birth of our industry. At one time, ALL airmail pilots, including those at UAL, CAL, and AMR wore the same wings. The wings that NWA pilots wore dated back to 1929, and were essentially unchanged for almost 80 years. Hat widget? Fine....but the wings were something else.

http://www.airlinecollectibles.com/insignia2.htm

Nu

Delta Air Lines Successfully Completes $750 Million in Delevering Initiatives

Delta Air Lines Successfully Completes $750 Million in Delevering Initiatives

Airline using excess liquidity to reduce debt, strengthen balance sheet
October 05, 2010: 09:00 AM ET

ATLANTA, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) in the September quarter successfully completed $750 million in debt reduction and delevering initiatives as part of the company's ongoing efforts to bring its adjusted net debt to $10 billion by the end of 2012, a reduction of $7 billion over three years.
(Logo: Login )
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090202/DELTALOGO )
Delta is taking advantage of the significant free cash flow it expects to generate in 2010 to delever its balance sheet through a variety of actions, including:

• successfully tendering for $300 million of the company's debt;
• calling $75 million of 9.5% Senior Secured Notes due 2014;
• repurchasing $153 million in debt through open market transactions and private purchases;
• achieving $160 million of debt relief through vendor negotiations; and
• reducing the company's lease expense by purchasing aircraft off lease.

"Delta is taking concrete steps to reduce our debt load to a more sustainable level for the long-term," said Paul Jacobson, Delta's senior vice president and treasurer. "We estimate that our initiatives in 2010 will reduce the company's expenses by $125 million on an annual basis."
The company's debt reduction initiatives will result in a one-time$350million charge in the September 2010 quarter. This charge is associated with the primarily non-cash loss on extinguishment of debt, including the write-off of unamortized debt discount recorded as part of the Northwest merger. At the time of its merger with Northwest, Delta was required under purchase accounting rules to record $1.8 billion of debt discount.
As used in this press release, "adjusted net debt" means debt and capital lease obligations plus seven times aircraft rent for the last twelve months, less cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.

Sounds great.... right?

Curious, which aircraft did they purchase off lease?

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/temp-117.jpg

Source: Delta.com not Deltanet....

Just did it with no problem. It was out of ATL though, not sure if that makes a diff or not.

Delta Air Lines September traffic up 6.5 pct
 

On Tuesday October 5, 2010, 5:55 pm
ATLANTA (AP) -- Delta Air Lines Inc. said Tuesday that its passenger traffic rose 6.5 percent in September, about the same rate at which it added seats on its flights.

As a result, occupancy -- or load factor -- was flat at 82.5 percent.

Delta, which was the world's largest airline until United and Continental completed their merger on Friday, flew 16.11 billion revenue passenger miles last month. That was up from 15.13 billion miles in September 2009.

A revenue passenger mile represents one paying passenger flown one mile.

The most noteworthy jump was in flights across the Pacific, with traffic up 21.6 percent to 2.01 billion revenue passenger miles. Those Asia flights were full, too, with load factor rising 6.5 percentage points to 87.9 percent.

Domestic traffic improved 5 percent to 9.4 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity, or the number of available seats, rose 6.6 percent to 19.53 billion available seat miles from 18.32 billion a year earlier.

For the first nine months of the year, the Atlanta-based carrier said traffic is up 1.1 percent while available seats are down 0.8 percent. Flights are slightly fuller, with occupancy up 1.5 percentage points to 83.6 percent.

Delta shares rose 32 cents, or 2.8 percent, to close at $11.83.



Those Pacific Loads increasing is very good news. :)

Probably the Saabs...

Nu

I love how they say a load factor of %82 is "flat".

There's a reason for that...anything north of %80 is essentially full. Delete out all the late night MX repos that are sold as live flights, and the other oddball departure times/weekend flights no one really wants go on, and that load factor is essentially %100 at the times real people want to travel.

There's less of that going accross the Pacific, but %87 is probably essentially "full" also.

From this data, it seems that we're filling every seat that we add back into the system, and they need more metal if they want to carry more people. We'd better call Alaska so they can order some more airplanes.

Nu