Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
09-07-2011 | 08:07 AM
Happy to be here
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From: A-320A
Thank you for correcting me
You're arguing apples, and I'm talking about oranges. The 6.5 TFP is pay for the pilots. The company doesn't want to pay that, that's been negotiated. Very rarely do they fly a trip that is less than 6.5 trips a day, occasionally reserves do when they have to adjust a trip for the reserve. They don't build trips that are worth less than 6.5 trips a day.
What I'm talking about is the number of pilots that would be here if we did away with ALV caps. If SW limited the amount of hours that could be flown, or credited or whatever metric you want to use, they would have many more pilots.
If Delta does away with limits on how much an individual can credit, what do you honestly think would happen. There would be guys flying to the FAR limits.
A lot of guys.
And when talking about productivity, what I said is what it is. They don't carry extra pilots. They have an incredibly lean structure. They count on guys picking up time. The place would fall apart if they didn't. They don't carry extra reserves. I'll say it again, reserves fly every day they are available! There is no going to the sim because you haven't flown for 90 days.
They also have the Lance Captains, who are senior F/Os who are captain qualified and can pick up trips as Captains. Those guys fight over open time. How many Captain spots do you think that costs? They cut their own group off at the nuts in so many ways it's not funny.
I stand by all of my statements, and it's logically sound to me. Get rid of the ALV limits=guys on the street.
(I respect most of what you post Scambo, this one just got me.)
You're arguing apples, and I'm talking about oranges. The 6.5 TFP is pay for the pilots. The company doesn't want to pay that, that's been negotiated. Very rarely do they fly a trip that is less than 6.5 trips a day, occasionally reserves do when they have to adjust a trip for the reserve. They don't build trips that are worth less than 6.5 trips a day.
What I'm talking about is the number of pilots that would be here if we did away with ALV caps. If SW limited the amount of hours that could be flown, or credited or whatever metric you want to use, they would have many more pilots.
If Delta does away with limits on how much an individual can credit, what do you honestly think would happen. There would be guys flying to the FAR limits.
A lot of guys.
And when talking about productivity, what I said is what it is. They don't carry extra pilots. They have an incredibly lean structure. They count on guys picking up time. The place would fall apart if they didn't. They don't carry extra reserves. I'll say it again, reserves fly every day they are available! There is no going to the sim because you haven't flown for 90 days.
They also have the Lance Captains, who are senior F/Os who are captain qualified and can pick up trips as Captains. Those guys fight over open time. How many Captain spots do you think that costs? They cut their own group off at the nuts in so many ways it's not funny.
I stand by all of my statements, and it's logically sound to me. Get rid of the ALV limits=guys on the street.
(I respect most of what you post Scambo, this one just got me.)
How do we see the SWA and SWAPA model as the way to go?
09-07-2011 | 08:09 AM
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From: A-320A
From my best estimates, with just shy of 10,800 pilots flying the line and given their average seniority multiplied by the pay tables with some assumptions thrown in for benefits and employment costs and so forth I think we're spending just shy of $1.7B on the pilot group.
If we didn't change the ALVs (using Sep 11 numbers) and went to SWA=DC9 pay you're looking at $800M cost increase. Or an increase of $138K average pilot pay (not including benefits, employment costs) to $208K or a $70K increase.
I'm assuming.
If we didn't change the ALVs (using Sep 11 numbers) and went to SWA=DC9 pay you're looking at $800M cost increase. Or an increase of $138K average pilot pay (not including benefits, employment costs) to $208K or a $70K increase.
I'm assuming.
09-07-2011 | 08:11 AM
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From: A-320A
I do agree that the staffing was slightly fat, but they had a reason for that, reality is that the 744 is doing the MAC flying not the 777.
09-07-2011 | 08:15 AM
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From: A-320A
Not sure I agree.
It's right there in plain sight (and we ought to use the data):
2010 Production
(for every dollar spent on pilot pay, heres how many ASMs were produced)
DAL 93.2 $/ASM
SWA 70.6 $/ASM
That means SWA got 32% fewer ASMs from every dollar of pilot pay than Delta did in 2010.
-SWA doesn't have augmented crews
-SWA doesn't make the same contributions
-SWA made lots of money
Clearly, pilot pay isn't the factor to running a highly profitable company.
But it can be an anchor on a poorly run company.
let's see if I can make my point using some other numbers:
AS 83 $/ASM
AMR 86.4 $/ASM
Both American and Alaska show relatively low production on the bottom scale of their respective peer groups. Yet, you would never know one of these is making record profits and the other near bankruptcy looking at these numbers.
My take -- this is a good metric.
"The street" looks at metrics like ASM CASM and RASM to determine the efficiency and production of an airline.
Dollars spent/ASM on pilot compensation directly affect RASM a key metric measuring an airlines productivity.
Cheers
George
It's right there in plain sight (and we ought to use the data):
2010 Production
(for every dollar spent on pilot pay, heres how many ASMs were produced)
DAL 93.2 $/ASM
SWA 70.6 $/ASM
That means SWA got 32% fewer ASMs from every dollar of pilot pay than Delta did in 2010.
-SWA doesn't have augmented crews
-SWA doesn't make the same contributions
-SWA made lots of money
Clearly, pilot pay isn't the factor to running a highly profitable company.
But it can be an anchor on a poorly run company.
let's see if I can make my point using some other numbers:
AS 83 $/ASM
AMR 86.4 $/ASM
Both American and Alaska show relatively low production on the bottom scale of their respective peer groups. Yet, you would never know one of these is making record profits and the other near bankruptcy looking at these numbers.
My take -- this is a good metric.
"The street" looks at metrics like ASM CASM and RASM to determine the efficiency and production of an airline.
Dollars spent/ASM on pilot compensation directly affect RASM a key metric measuring an airlines productivity.
Cheers
George
I also agree with you pilot costs per ASM. It is a good metric to use, but again we are looking at our operation with a ton of augmentation on LH and ULH flights versus a airline with all domestic two man ops. What would be more telling is to break it out wrt to domestic and international two man versus international three and four man ops. Then you can compare apples to apples.
Of course the ops of augmented flights still have the costs associated with them, but the RASM is vastly different.
09-07-2011 | 08:19 AM
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From: A-320A
Line holder(A) has a buddy(B) that takes a trip off of his line, and adds it to their line. Pilot A picks up a trip taking him to ALV+15, where he can no longer pick up out of the pot, and then swaps his original trip back to his line allowing him flying well above max pickup of ALV+15. Pilot B then just picks up a trip to get to ALV+15.
What it allows is someone to use the swap board and its functions; which do not have a max pickup limit, to allow someone go park a trip for the WS award function that looks at your current line and ALV+15.
09-07-2011 | 08:19 AM
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From: B757/767
It's a way around the max pick up window. One line holder gives a trip to his buddy with the agreement he will eventually take it back(hence the term 'trip parking') then said pilot white slips open time. Once he/she gets a trip from open time they take the trip BACK from their buddy via SWAP since the SWAP board isn't subject to the max pick up window.
09-07-2011 | 08:28 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Feb 2007
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From: 765-A
Thanks Acl, and Johnson. 
09-07-2011 | 08:56 AM
Works Every Weekend
Joined: Dec 2007
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From: 737 ATL
09-07-2011 | 08:59 AM
seeing the country...
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 4,015
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From: 73N A
I know we all hate the CQ disks - I think we should dump the CDs for training and do it old school!
How To Fly The B-26 Airplane (1944) - YouTube
How To Fly The B-26 Airplane (1944) - YouTube
09-07-2011 | 09:08 AM
The Brown Dot +1
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 7,775
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From: 777B
Thank you for correcting me
You're arguing apples, and I'm talking about oranges. The 6.5 TFP is pay for the pilots. The company doesn't want to pay that, that's been negotiated. Very rarely do they fly a trip that is less than 6.5 trips a day, occasionally reserves do when they have to adjust a trip for the reserve. They don't build trips that are worth less than 6.5 trips a day.
What I'm talking about is the number of pilots that would be here if we did away with ALV caps. If SW limited the amount of hours that could be flown, or credited or whatever metric you want to use, they would have many more pilots.
If Delta does away with limits on how much an individual can credit, what do you honestly think would happen. There would be guys flying to the FAR limits.
A lot of guys.
And when talking about productivity, what I said is what it is. They don't carry extra pilots. They have an incredibly lean structure. They count on guys picking up time. The place would fall apart if they didn't. They don't carry extra reserves. I'll say it again, reserves fly every day they are available! There is no going to the sim because you haven't flown for 90 days.
They also have the Lance Captains, who are senior F/Os who are captain qualified and can pick up trips as Captains. Those guys fight over open time. How many Captain spots do you think that costs? They cut their own group off at the nuts in so many ways it's not funny.
I stand by all of my statements, and it's logically sound to me. Get rid of the ALV limits=guys on the street.
(I respect most of what you post Scambo, this one just got me.)
You're arguing apples, and I'm talking about oranges. The 6.5 TFP is pay for the pilots. The company doesn't want to pay that, that's been negotiated. Very rarely do they fly a trip that is less than 6.5 trips a day, occasionally reserves do when they have to adjust a trip for the reserve. They don't build trips that are worth less than 6.5 trips a day.
What I'm talking about is the number of pilots that would be here if we did away with ALV caps. If SW limited the amount of hours that could be flown, or credited or whatever metric you want to use, they would have many more pilots.
If Delta does away with limits on how much an individual can credit, what do you honestly think would happen. There would be guys flying to the FAR limits.
A lot of guys.
And when talking about productivity, what I said is what it is. They don't carry extra pilots. They have an incredibly lean structure. They count on guys picking up time. The place would fall apart if they didn't. They don't carry extra reserves. I'll say it again, reserves fly every day they are available! There is no going to the sim because you haven't flown for 90 days.
They also have the Lance Captains, who are senior F/Os who are captain qualified and can pick up trips as Captains. Those guys fight over open time. How many Captain spots do you think that costs? They cut their own group off at the nuts in so many ways it's not funny.
I stand by all of my statements, and it's logically sound to me. Get rid of the ALV limits=guys on the street.
(I respect most of what you post Scambo, this one just got me.)
Thanks for the kind words, I was unclear about what you were saying about getting rid of ALV and guys flying to the far limits...all I read was get rid of the ALV. I think it is slightly more complicated than that, but I still cant make that clear linear justification for furloughs. FAR limits are weekly, quarterly, rolling and annual. Most guys only focus on the annual. 83 hrs/month hard time gets you to the annual. Its pretty easy to get there if you want to. Credit time (ie deadheads and greenslips) dont count towards FAR limits. You can build a line requesting max credit. The max credit trips do less damage to the FAR limit than hard time.
I can concede that if everyone flies FAR limits, hard time, we'd be overstaffed by some number of pilots. I doubt that would be anywhere near 1000. However, the way I've seen the system operate in the real world, you have guys that want to fly waaaaay less than that and others who would fly ATL-HSV just for the extra cash.
There is no doubt SWA is more efficient than DAL. Domestically, those numbers speak for themselves. They are not, however, miraculously more efficient, they average 10 hard time hours more per month than DAL domestic pilots. If we flew those 10 extra hours per month, then I can see where 1000 furloughs come from.
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