If that was your point, that's fine...but this is what you said:

You can understand how this North guy didn't appreciate the apparent cavalier attitude of shifting flying prior to SOC in order to balance out furloughs. I promise that you would not have appreciated such a comment from me if I had proposed the reverse.

Thinking out loud is not stupid. The comment about shifting flying from North to South to balance furloughs, was.

We've never been known to just bend over for anyone.

That's what I hear as well. The Pacific is holding its own. Glad we brought something OK to the party.

Yes we are. And as such, we should both hope that the company would never shift flying from one side or the other prior to SOC so that furlough proportionality could be altered. That is no way to start a honeymoon.

Carl

Carl,

Below are the total combined system Revenue Passenger Miles and Load Factor data for APR/MAY versus last year. Got them right off the company's PR site. The first thing that stands out is the dramatic drop in traffic across the Pacific. It is a far greater percentage drop than Trans Atlantic, Latin America, or Domestic. In fact, it's so large that I'm at a loss to explain it as I don't recall any major route changes. If anyone has a rational explanation for the numbers I'd be interested to know

Further RPM and Load factor data is always incomplete information without knowing yields....the yields may be better than the other markets. However, given the numbers, I'm not sure that you can say that the Pacific has been "holding its own"



Here are links to the....April/May combined traffic reports

Delta Air Lines Newsroom - News Archive

Delta Air Lines Reports May Traffic - Jun 04, 2009

EDIT to add the 'Year to Date' numbers which aren't as bad for the Pacific, but still not great...

Anybody see Steve Gorman's Chat? He says Delta is trying to get 40 to 50 more mainline narrowbody jets.

Wonder how that fits into the equation? Any chance there might be some good news on the horizon?

Cynic here, but it sounds like he wants to get more narrow body jets and lose some older larger less efficent ones.

How many mainline narrowbody jets did they just park? If they are looking for those, all they have to do is look in the desert they parked them in.

That would be adding capacity, and I cannot see them doing that on a grander scale.

Bar, did he say get as in get them off the flying schedule or get as in purchase. ;)

Fact is that, if you look at the long term acquisition desires of DAL 40-50 jets would makes sense with a mix of 35 or so MD-90, a few more 737/320's, and the 777's that may come as replacements.

Also American is taking delivery of jets and still shrinking. I can see some domestic capacity added back in, but we have plenty of your favorite jet sitting in VCV doing that.

Maybe they have found a DC-9 replacement we can all believe in. It could be more DC-9's! :cool:
It has all been on the table, and maybe one of the manufacturers has finally given us what we want. I would see them as zero sum. IMHO

For the sake of space Carl I will just respond.

What you highlighted was taken the wrong way, and I can see how you might have done so. I apologize that I was not more clear on that. I know it is a sore subject and all. I will try to be more wordy next time. Really I am sorry that it brought bile to you mouth. It was not the plan nor intent. I am not one that will move to my corner quickly. I have grown fond of the friendly banter between all of us the last year!
I, as I am sure you, do not want to see anyone hit the streets. I see it as one list not two. We are close to the end of two separate lists. A lot of people are not going to like the results of one very open list for all to bid, but that is what we asked for and the pain will only last a few years for some.
IMHO it is best we could have done to get past all of this the quickest. I know I will get bumped, but I am totally OK with it. I might even go fly that French toy that a few of my friends are on :)

Point is, I KNOW that they company would not walk willingly in to a bee hive. I agree that a furlough prior to SOC would be sticky but I unlike a lot of guys can see them doing it. Not a lot at first, but the fact is that many of the next round of displacements will be though 88 training before mid Sept. The majority of the next round flew the bird and get the short course. That means that they would be back on line in two weeks, not six like a full course would demand.

These are difficult times, and I am sure we will make sure to adapt what we need to, to make the pain as fair as possible. In the end there is no other way.

It looks like domestically there will be a trend towards replacing several 50 seat RJ's with bigger ones and versions of Douglas jets. Together we should have the loads to make that work with cheap MD90's. Just think of it as Allegiant on IAE V2500's. Yeah "My Sharona" was on the radio when this was new equipment, but once we clean the 8-tracks out of the overheads they should be good to go.

It really did sour me, so I appreciate your clarification.

Friends again...

sniff...

Carl

Your data illustrates the exact problem. Capacity (RPM's) were pulled out of the Pacific almost right away, thus the yields have been able to remain strong. Delta seemed highly reluctant to pull capacity out of the Atlantic, thus they've had to slash fares in order to fill all that unneeded capacity. Low yields with your same fixed costs are why Delta is currently getting "killed" in the Atlantic. But we're not alone, everybody is.

Carl