Bar;

I agree, and if we stay away from more bailouts, we should see correction followed by the conservative estimates.

The Prime Market impending meltdown in Europe may bode very well for the dollar. Seems to be be providing moderate short term strength.

I agree the market is very complex these day.

Buy Uranium.

HA!! NOT GONNA HAPPEN, I just turned 29 a week ago! :eek: I'm inching up on 30 and its scary!! :eek:

I'd be excited to upgrade by 35 though :D

I heard today one of the holdups with the Delta/US Air slot swap is that JetBlue is objecting to it. They want to get into DCA and maybe see this as their way in.

Denny

Yep, that amount to it. I say you want it buy LCC. :D

I hate to pee on your Wheaties, but I just don't see the economy doing as well as you ACL. They just admitted to 850,000 more jobs lost last year than reported. The tax increases for next year will suck out any additional capital any recovery will produce. Freddy and Fannie will require ginormous bailouts soon. Real unemployment is 16% We lost almost 10 million jobs last year.
The budget battle coming is the true test. If that passes as submitted it is nothing less than the destruction of the United States as a free capitalist nation. It will spend money we will never have. There is a parallel to our government and our company. Both are saddled with huge amounts of debt. One is prudently trying to pay it down, reducing spending, not shopping for new shiny things to buy, and doing everything to raise more revenue for the long term. One is doing just the opposite.

When RA leaves, I've got an idea what his next job should be...

Denny,
Where did you come across that information?

I have to agree with Satch. Rick Santelli on CNBC this morning said there is a lot of manipulation with these numbers and that the rate should be around 10.6%, 18% if you count those who stopped looking and 92% if you combine the other two with the number of people who waste time on Facebook at work. Okay I added the 92% thanks to a joke from the Comedy Channel.

At best the 9.7% is an updated rosy picture of the current unemployment. At best. I think I'll put it with those GDP numbers that keep getting revised downwards after the initial headliner gets put out of GDP "RISE" or unemployment "DROPS!". I hope it is improving or at the least settling but I'm not holding my breath that the closed society in DC will get it right.

As John Adams said one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

Everybody on res has been hoping for a while now....

I didn't know they were hiring, last I heard they were talking about layoffs.

If training capacity is the bottleneck, why not contract some training out to UAL & AMR?

I had heard the same thing through the rumor mill. I don't have an official source, though.

I know it is not an official government statistic, but future bookings at airlines give those guys a good idea of where the economy is going. None of these statistics ever show up anywhere because each airline guards them like they were nuclear launch codes. Virtually every airline on their conference calls talked in general about the uptick in their bookings and especially the yields. This is the first time I have seen this kind of reporting in two years. Last year, Delta was pretty quick to pull the trigger on capacity cuts in response to their future bookings and they led the pack. This year, Delta was the most optimistic about the next few quarters. Let's hope they are right again. All hail the great and powerful Hauenstein.

How seriously can Jetblue hold things up?

And how can we kick them in the groin for doing so?

They're demanding DCA slots, and they enjoy both a disproportionate amount of political support for the size, and the cult following of a "Low Cost Airline".

The "Low Cost Airline" is a mythical entity that needs to be given what the "legacies" earned, fair and square, for free, so that they can bring low prices to the consumer. Which is something they do for, oh, four to six weeks afetr they are given slots, and they become the incumbent.

Pretty seriously. Its like sinkr8 said about the political support.

JetBlue has their very own Senator. Charles Schumer.

If it wasn't for him getting JFK slots for them, they wouldn't even be in business.
Schumer should be listed as one of the founders of JetBlue. Maybe the main founder.

Sat;
Not saying this is the way I see it. I am stating that this is the way our company is modeling it.

I bet a Fed job will work real well.

Oh, maybe by flooding JFK with a bunch of Dash 8s and ERJs during peak hours at JFK, mirroring our FL routes with sperm-painted 757s and then complaining about our departure banks.... nah, nobody would be that crazy:D

Although it's an open secret that Barger wants us in DCA, nobody here seems to know anything about us sticking our nose in the slot swap. Haven't heard anything from company blast-mail or our rumor/gripe board. And yes, we do have our very own senator. At least until someone else buys him for more...

It is holding it up, but like Oberstar he will not stop it.

Excellent post!
That was Leo Mullin though that tried the "swamp 'em with RJs" tactics. Hurt DAL more than jetBlue.
There's a new sheriff in town now. (thankfully)
Mullin was an idiot.

Agreed. You guys are much better off without Mullin ****ing off the world 300 CRJs at a time. Cheers.

Amen, but we still get to deal with it for another eight years.....

Touché :D

........

Speaking of dca, what's the state of the dal and lcc shuttle these days?

Was? :confused:

Scoop

Heard it directly from an ALPA rep.

Denny

DAL Shuttle operated in concert with DCI......:(

Seems to be flying to ZRH a lot to go count his money.

Do you mean DC9-50's ?!:eek:

Denny,
Thanks

I like the part about swords being distrubuted by watery tarts... or something like that.

hockey,

Do we not live in a representative democracy? Do we not elect reps in each council to put forward our views? If we were to vote on every little issue, we would be swimming in votes and joe line pilot would get disillusioned and voting percentage would be lower than it already is on bigger issues (IMO).

This is what we elect representatives to do, look out after the interests of the pilots they represent.

I agree there are certain issues that definately SHOULD be put to a vote of the membership, like any Scope changes, but I don't think every change needs to go that route.

All the above is just my opinion and everyone knows what opinions are like............:D

Denny

With today's technology, they could set up an electronic voting system kind of like the polls on here. It could take as little as 3-4 days to run a vote. They changed scope last year without a vote because they felt it was in the best interest of the pilot group. I'm not saying the change on scope was right or wrong, but they shouldn't have had the power to do that just like they shouldn't have the power to sign this LOA. We have no idea what this letter of agreement does for us, but we do know it is changing a section in the contract. It's good for us though because our reps feel that way.

Can someone give me a quick explination on the current DC plan? How much does Delta pay into it currently? Is it a matching contribution? Do I have to put in 11% for them to match 11% or do they put in 11% or whatever it is no matter what I put in?

It requires no contribution on your part....Delta contributes 2% to the 401k and 10% to the DC plan. At least this is the case for the fDal guys.

Air France
 

Anyone know how to check loads out of CDG on Air France flights?

Thanx

Question: If you pick up a CRAF flight, are you paid for the deadhead from your base the departure point...and when your return. Additionally, if the CRAF flight cancels, are you pay protected?

Wonder if all these guys will sell ther homes and move to another base or commute????

You can't. The best you can hope for is to look at ticket availability on their website (I am assuming you can do this like you can a US carrier) and base your decision on IF they are still selling tickets. I put my folks on Alitalia a few years back, and I couldn't get ANY information about whether they were even on the flight or not. If you do figure out a way, it would be nice to post the results though.

Good luck

So lets get this straight ....
 

Never mind

Probably so... Even though I haven't flown much intl lately, I don't want to switch to domestic just to stay in CVG...only to see the base close in a year or so. Once all the guys get their bounces in the 76, it becomes a 7ER category. Looks like a good mix of flying up there, just hope the drive/commute isn't too bad.