Elvis;

You are absolutely correct. If we furlough, its because the mayan calendar is correct...then it wont matter. Personally, I expect a market correction in the near future with a fall rally, but that is not a furlough reason.

Yeah right....my laundry must stink, cause I've done just as soon as bids were out...no takers. Not incredibly bad trips either.....

8

You just need to be patient. Pilots are trying to work out thier best swap with the pot options before they start snagging stuff off the swap/drop board.

For every pilot that gripes about a Lima 3 day, there is another pilot who would pick it up in a second.

Without the numbers in front of me, I can not be sure, but it seems the 747-400 is around 30% more expensive per RSM than the 777-200. The 777-300 is the answer for what Delta needs, but those require Cap Ex.

Back when we ran the merger numbers it was obvious which airplanes would go away in which order. The surprise has been that the strength of our network supported them as long as they did.

While NRT is not being talked about much, I'm sure that mess tanked the justification for keeping the 747's on the short term.

It would take digging into the cargo numbers to figure out if the 747 is a keeper. (It would seem Japan needs a Berlin Airlift, but that has not materialized)

In really crazy coincidences which mean nothing, Virgin has a dozen 747-400's. Now that BA/AA is tied up and Virgin's got the "Office of Fair Trading" up their butt, they need friends sooner rather than later.

I agree, BUT, just as we are preparing our "opener" so is management. A couple hundred on furlough would put a lot of pressure on 100 seat rates.

We also have not heard management's fuel assumptions. That's a wild card.

I recall Richard or Ed saying something to the regards of having renegotiated the leased 747-400's shortly after the merger - that the rates were really attractive and it led to the decision to keep the 744's in the fleet going forward with cabin enhancements.

I personally want the 744s to hang around a long time. In fact, I hope every airplane hangs around. Now the 773 might be the winner, just look at the Boeing order book and notice 773 for passenger airlines and 748s for cargo but not vice versa. But fuel efficiency is not the #1 issue imho. The DC-9 can hang around a long time given it's overall cost plus the cost to replace it and it always makes me wonder if the 733 could've had a longer life here had we not parked them.

I mean even SWA is upgrading their 733 cockpits and keeping those pop tops flying.

I'll hang with ya at the bottom. It's amazing, I don't think I've moved % since the merged SLI.

Remember that this cut will be EASK's not block hrs. That means that DAL will have to cut more flights to get to the equal EASK's because we fly smaller jets. Eg, one 380 equals about 3 767's.

This capacity cut will come with the normal seasonal pull down, and then changing the gauge on many routes. So lets say that DTW-AMS is on a 744 it may now be on a 767. Or FCO from ATL is on a 330, but will now be on a 767 and only five days a week.

The DAL jets as stated earlier will be redeployed to other markets like Asia and South America. I can easily see them pulling the 765 of LHR and making it do SA runs and the 330's doing Asia Hops. Point is, that it the AE may not reflect what you think it may. Shifting block hrs for two quarters does not give an ROI on displacements. Of course if they have opted for a 2012 summer block pulldown from this year, you may see some displacements but I am not sure they are willing to commit to that yet.

You see that too?

More like an acquisition. It is also in line with a large a/c order. You need a good stock price and good liquidity to finance the down payment on 100+ hulls.

Me thinks HI and then AS. HI will be a trow away if need be.