All Bids are out!

 

Soooooooo.........I need to remove the condition 'Max Credit' from my default bid because I'm lazy.

 

Anyone know what the long layover hotel in Myrtle beach is supposed to be?

 

Done by the 15th and on a weekend no less, definitely was pleasantly surprised by that one.

 

It's time to have another AE and get some pilot block hours back in mecca where they are anyways. This is bullcrap that I still can't hold a line on the 737 out of ATL but would be half way up the list in DTW on fifi.

 

I honestly thought you were joking when I read your post saying schedules were out. I was surprised as well.

 

That stinks. Amazing how senior ATL can be. I think it'll be mid June before we see the AE though.

 

I'm still trying to figure out why practically every rotation in NYC starts at 0600 and finishes up after 2100, I guess it has something to do with NYC being the angry, bipolar, sexually-deprived, red-headed stepchild of Delta.

Keep hearing the AE is still contingent on finalization of the slow swap agreement at LGA, which is apparently close to being finalized. Hear Airways was trying to back out at one point, but is now back on board. At least that is what I've heard, but at this point who knows.

 

I think they may also be waiting to see if any pilots take the voluntary outs, doesn't that close on 30 June?

 

That is a possible reason.......

..........but I think it has more to do with the fact that there is almost exclusively O&D traffic in the NYC domestic markets(JFK intl conx excepted). The company can fill an airplane out of NYC at 0600 to lots of locations due to sheer numbers of people that live in the NYC area. On the late inbounds, even though there still isn't that connecting pax (lots of O&D), they can fill an airplane later in the evening and have it terminate in NYC at 11pm, and people will buy the tickets.

It therefore makes sense(from a route/yield planning perspective) to use those planes as late into the night as profitably feasible, and to have lots of airplanes "overnight" in NYC. If you don't want to pay for 2 crews to layover in NYC (the late arrival can't fly the early departure out the next day) then the only logical solution is to build the trips to begin and end NYC rotations. It sucks for us, but profits trump convenient pilot schedules.

ATL, DTW and MSP do not have the O&D traffic to justify a "full bank" ending the night in the hub, and then to start a "full bank" outbound the next morning, so they do not "overnight" very many planes in the hubs that need to get a start in the morning. In the ATL, MSP, DTW "network", most airframes start the day headed into the hubs to connect passengers and then do hub turns pretty much the rest of the day, it is infinitely easier to just build rotations that start and end during the middle of the day during one of those hub turns.

It blows for the NYC crews (and for the LA based also I would imagine), but it is a reality of operating a profitable airline with a hub in NYC.