Jan classes at the earliest, more like Feb. As of earlier this week.

Yes, those that were hired will get the call first. Then those with interview invites will get called.

Hate to be a wet blanket to the prospective new hires at the new Delta, but the conference call today was not at all up beat regarding growth. This was said today on the call:

"It's probably an understatement to say it's been a challenging year with record fuel prices," Chief Executive Richard Anderson told analysts during a conference call. "And now we face economic uncertainty in the global markets."
President and Chief Financial Officer Ed Bastian said Delta is looking hard at its capacity given the economic downturn. He said that in the fourth quarter, Delta's international capacity growth will be about 2 percentage points less than previously expected.
Bastian said that Delta expects to experience a decline in demand in 2009 due to the economic environment, and the airline is prepared to act accordingly on the capacity front if that happens.
"There's no doubt we face challenges with the credit crisis," he said.

My opinion is that all growth plans and capacity plans are already being revised sharply downward, or the plans are already set to do so. The damage done to the domestic and world economy is real, and it will take some time for the patient to heal.

Carl

2% is nothing. That will be the issues with aircraft deliveries. It equates to less than about one city pair.

As I stated last week there were some mixed signals coming out about future plans. It appears that this has worked itself out. From the information that I and others have, there is planned growth and hiring for next year.

The 2% was in regards to the 4th quarter. What Bastian said about 2009 is the big part.

"Bastian said that Delta expects to experience a decline in demand in 2009 due to the economic environment, and the airline is prepared to act accordingly on the capacity front if that happens."

I'd love to see new hires as much as anyone but I don't see it happening soon.

Carl,
Thats how we operate. We hire right until its time to furlough. So in order to furlough, we need to start hiring again.;)

Scoop

I wonder why in the hell that happens? I've watched that exact same thing at NWA.

Carl

Ain't that the truth.

I will see if the tune changes in the coming weeks.

I want to see new guys as much as anyone, but it looks like a major global recession is in the works. I'd sure wait as long as I could to hire anyone if I were in charge of things. If stuff gets as bad as some are saying, we'll be lucky if we don't furlough down to the TBKANE clause and pull seats out of some of the RJ's. It's one thing to park a few domestic airframes, but when we start parking ER's the number of guys we won't need will add up very fast. I hope I'm wrong, but the worldwide economy sure doesn't look like it's gonna be doing to well for a few years.

I agree to a point. Most say this recession will be over in the next six to eight months. If we are in fact at or near the bottom, it would make no sense for a carrier to furlough that many.
Now I know, since when do airlines and sense go in the same sentence.
It is a bad time, but currently DAL has not see the expected drop in its loads. We are quite surprised by this.

i concur, while dead heading on DAL and others I've noticed the loads continue to be robust,good on all of you !

Yes, most of our stuff is full or near it. Kind of weird. I have been on AMR a lot and they are no where near what we have been. Not sure why there is a disparity.

This also from the earnings call you quoted...
Delta Airlines, Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha

Jamie Baker – J. P. Morgan

That’s right. We have noted that in the past. You talk about taking steps at the first sign of weakness…I don’t want to get too hung up on this but by our math, and I suspect the math that many others are doing, current fuel and quite frankly pretty bad demand doesn’t necessarily require you do anything. I suppose it is better if you do. I guess I’m just curious what sort of demand hit it might take at $2.40 spot jet to potentially drive you into loss production or if you want to put it differently are you now optimized to withstand a strong recession or merely a modest downturn?

Richard Anderson

Let me try to answer the question a different way. I guess we haven’t particularly quantified it. We kind of do sensitivity analysis as we are preparing our 2009 plan. When you think about what you would rather manage at an airline, you would rather deal with demand cessation rather than $150 fuel. In some respects with fuel dropping the way it is dropping we are sort of somewhat hedged against the economic downturn because the fuel prices have gotten so high. We were looking at a $4 billion year-over-year increase in fuel and when fuel goes down to normalized levels, to Ed’s point, if you took today’s spot in the fourth quarter and we didn’t have any hedge effect we’d have a couple hundred million profit. So in terms of what you would rather manage to, you would rather not have either, right? But if you had to manage to one of them, having fuel dropping like a rock is a big offset to what happens in the economy.
You actually wrote a good note on this a week ago. It sort of highlighted that. It is accurate in that regard.

Edward Bastian

To echo what Richard was saying, we also don’t want to make sure we are not just going to be stagnant and take the lower fuel prices and sit back and let that roll to the bottom line while we watch our top line soften. So we are going to be doing both. It certainly gives you a hell of a lot better cushion in operating flexibility with the lower fuel price environment than $150 oil did to make those decisions on demand.

I hate the fact that you are spot on with that. It use to be if an airline was hiring you had to get to stagnation and then loss before you worried about being furloughed. Now an airline can go from hiring to furlough in almost the same damn day! Its BS.

The only softening of markets that we are seeing is in the North Atlantic Theater. That said, South America and Africa are doing quite well. The 2% you will see in cuts will come from Europe. That is it.

3:30pm EDT and I don't see the A/E. Do you think they'll get it out today?

Looks like sometime next week.

Sorry to change the topic..
Delta.com's fleet page indicates options for several types, particulary - 7 767-300ER and 12 767-400ER:

Aircraft Fleet

Has anyone heard of any plans to exercise them?
Thanks

I stated try. The needed to finish the schedules for next month before they did it.
If they cannot get it done before 5 it will probably be early next week.

Hope you're right; again, I was told it would be Nov.

I tend to agree with Carl on his above post. We will be lucky if we don't see some kind of downsizing imo.

Fair enough, but I am hearing quite the opposite.
FWIW Look under "Hanger Talk" on the union web page. Even one of our union guys stated today.
There were some last minute changes.

FWIW, the latest NWA APA (same as DAL's AE) just came out:

14 747-400 Capt
12 A-330 Capt
42 A-320 Capt
and a slew of F/O positions.

Carl

Those are all new, additional vacancies?

Or, a backwards slide?

I'm just scratching my head as to how flying could be added in that amount with awful stuff in regards to the economy every time I open up a newspaper. Great news if they can make it work though.

Those are new awards for those pilots, mostly due to recent retirements. Not new positions, just recently vacated positions. Retirements are a wonderful thing!

NWA is not growing at all. This APA was all new awards/vacancies to fill normal and early retirements.

When you're losing as many at the top as we are, the vacancies can be pretty startling.

Carl

Nice.

I'm an outsider looking in but I am trying to keep up with this merge.

It would've been a lot different right now if age 65 wasn't passed or if it had been at least phased in gradually instead of being implemented immediately with reckless abandon.

Doesn't make any difference at NWA because we were able to keep a frozen pension plan. If you stay past 60, you actually lose money. Thus, hardly anyone is staying past 60. I know I won't.

Carl

That is good to know. Now that there is enough upward movement do to the fact that 150 or so PERPS will be awarded, we can get on with hiring

PERPS is not a good word at DL,at best it was a necessary evil.Please tell me NW is not going there.

Are PERPS the same as Post retirement pilots ?,if not I typed too soon.

PERP = Pilot Early Retirement Program = a very good thing

Carl and f16dude, thanks for the information.

With the "slew of FO positions" would this latest APA come close to covering the voluntary furloughs?

Saw the number 165 on APC NWA profile page ("hiring" section):
http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/a...northwest.html

Also what is the meaning of "196 (non i furlough" phrase in "pilots" section?

Thanks

It is a great thing, the company entices the senior guys that are on the fence to make the jump. NWA has ALOT of guys nearing retirement and anything that can get them to leave sooner than later is a good thing.

Bottom line, PERPS are a good thing for those that take them and for everyone else on the list.:D

the company offered partial month leaves, 3 month leaves, and perps. They have done this for a number of reasons but mainly because there is a need for realignment on the list. They have additional people in some categories and shortages in others. As people bid around and move up in awards its helping to align the categories better. The interesting thing will be how many more guys submit for retirement last minute prior to DCC to capture the grandfathered retirement medical coverage. Either way though we have big time retirements coming up in the next couple years. First 10-15 years will be big time nwa retirements and then DAL will kick in with big time retirements making a big attrition wave over the next 20 years just based on age 60-65 retirements. Should be pretty significant movement for the New DAL and that doesnt even consider any growth, thats just gravy. Should be interesting.

Thanks, Superpilot92


So do you think the latest APA will suck in all the pilots on leaves and NWA will be properly staffed (maybe even understaffed) SYSTEMWIDE?

Could there be a need for hiring sooner that we thought?

I am just curious, thanks again for good news on the retirements.

Anyone interested in a very nice CrashPad in ATL, 15 min. to airport with shuttle service available. PM me for details and pics.

Ae
 

SD and an HR guy from crew resources were in the ATL lounge yesterday. They both indicated that they were putting the final touches on the AE, and it should be out middle to end of next week. 777 with some backfill.

I'm sure this isn't new news, but just an update. Nothing else ground-breaking, at least while I was in there.

at this time it would all be speculation just like everything else right now. Depending on retirements and post merger rumors anything is possible.

Info from the LCP meeting on Oct 17 indicated approval for hiring starting in January - at least 170 pilots.

no one, at least in the full session in the morning, said anything about hiring approval at that meeting.