bigdaddie

Enjoy the waves man! The seat loss is not a big deal and I love the 767. The pay is though. What kills me is the ever moves backward: we lost 50% or so in BK, I made some of it up by going from 767 to 767-400, was loving life with 737-800 CA pay at 70hrs RES, now just getting by on 7ER FO pay.

The good thing is I have cut the pork out of my budget. Get a clue Arnold!

Damn, there I go AGAIN bashing the Governerator.

Take care TC, we shall fly again together sometime. I didn't scare you too bad, did I? I am fairly new around here you know (12yrs and 5months for the factoids).

rvr350

I'm sure you didn't scare me! I was the one who took your chicken crew meal

acl65pilot

We have chicken meals?

I always hope we have the Spare Ribs. Best thing they serve in the domestic markets.

acl65pilot

Well then forget the whole thing

If we use just 2000 jobs outsourced in the last eight years think about this. ( I still think it is more than 2000, but I agree that if you take all of the LTS etc out of it and look at pilot jobs it is less than 5500. Fact is that DCI employs about 7500 pilots. That is a lot of flying. In fact 705~ RJ's. It is almost the size of the NWA/DAL combined fleet. (That makes me sick)

That is more pilot than most of our DCI carriers employ. (Each carrier)
ASA has 1800 pilots. In 2001 they did not even have 1000, so about half went there.

Think about it, it is one regional airline. We need to reverse course on this.

sailingfun

By far the largest loss of jobs at Delta came via work rule changes. Go back to a 75 hour cap, touching trips for vacation, seniority list instructors, line of time bidding, no recovery flying, training paid as credit toward the cap ect.. ect.... and Delta would have to hire 3000 pilots tomorrow.

acl65pilot

Yes, PBS is way to efficient for my liking. I also agree 100% with that statement.
But to have a 75 hr cap the hourly rate needs to go though the roof. Most cannot live on 75 hrs a month and be happy about it.

slowplay

A couple of points...the number of connection aircraft (and they aren't all jets, there's a substantial number of SF340, EMB-120, and ATR-72 in there as well) was 800 for both airlines just over a year ago. With the announced cutbacks there will be fewer than 700 very soon, and I'll bet closer to 600 within a year and a half if things don't change substantially for the better.

Second, the assumption most scope "hawks" make is that if DCI wasn't doing the flying, mainline would be doing it. That's not correct, and I know that you acknowledged that with your AVP comment earlier. There isn't a linear translation of the growth of DCI and shrinkage of mainline. Mainline would have shrunk anyway.

As you point out, ASA got larger over the last 8 years. They also got legacy in terms of costs and now have furloughed pilots. Same is true for CMR. CMR now has fewer than 1000 pilots. How big did they used to be?

rvr350

I still remember the prime ribs/caviar served in the good 'ole days.... Wait, it was only about 9 years ago. Now we almost have to use our hands to finish our meals.

acl65pilot

I have been the one saying that the regionals flying for DCI have legacy costs. We are now looking at carriers like Republic because their costs are lower. When will that end?
I think that given the fact that these regionals that do our flying are getting expensive to the point of being zero sum with mainline gives us an opportunity to recapture this flying.
I agree that some of this flying (the true 50 seat markets) would have been lost if it was forced upon mainline, but the 70+ seat flying can be done here.
The arguement made to me was that I expected to keep the 70+ seat flying here and it would magically make us order more 737's. The statement is false. I think that if the company wants to put a 76 or 88 seat jet in a market that is their call. It is ours to make sure a DAL seniority list pilot is in its seat(s).

I know that we will never rid ourselves' of DCI, but we can get it in check with the opportunity I stated above. Will it be easy? No. But it is something that NEEDS to be done. These large RJ's are the size of jets that were on mainline no to many years ago. We could argue that below 50 seats was here at a time too, but that will fall on deaf ears, and I know that.
I will also state that OH's demise is part cost, but it is more than that. They are the accumulator in the system, with no contract to force a floor in their flying.
ASA furloughed pilots because DAL took 50 seaters out of the market, reduced their block hrs, and in effect made them more costly than they already were. I see them trying to stuff another 2 for 1 deal down their mouths too!
Also I know about the reductions in these RJ's. It was not us the union that did this. It is pure economics. I think that you can agree with me, that because they are riding the DCI operation of 50 seat jets they will come looking for a larger RJ's and more of them to spread their costs over more seats. We have got to say no to this. No more 76+ seat jets and definitely nothing over 76 seats. We let this slide and we can kiss a lot more than the DC-9 good bye.

Also, FWIW I am not just a scope hawk. I have other issues that I see as needing attention. Problem is that this one is the single most important issue to make sure we have a pilot base that is strong enough to make any headway on these other issues.
There is and always will be strength in numbers.

acl65pilot

I do to. Omaha steaks were the best. (To the good old days!.......)