acl65pilot

Yep, thank gawd they are finally removing all of the asbestos out of their new gates......

FrankCobretti

I'm surprised that everyone's surprised that the new LGA flying is mostly RJs. Most of USAir's flying out of there was RJs, and the RJ writing on the wall was so clear that my captain and I discussed whether the slot swap would actually benefit us pilots months and months ago.

What, was everyone not paying attention?

gloopy

It just sounded a bit to apologetic WRT the company's actions in LGA. They were disappointed that we didn't get very much mainline but still seemed like they were falling for the old playbook of "we need these outsourced planes to grow the market so you can get it later" nonsense. 250+ DC-9-10 replacement jets in addition to how many more hundreds of smaller RJ's were all supposed to build markets and so was Alaska I'm sure. Yet mainline only shrinks. We get a route here and there, but we shrink as thousands and thousands of pilot jobs doing Delta flying go to other seniority lists.

LGA is even more insulting because of our help with the "lobbying" in addition to the fact that by its nature, a domestic "hub" in LGA is almost entirely O&D. There will be very few instances of pax connecting there because of the slot growth to even maybe fly on mainline metal even if that justified the initial outsourcing (which it doesn't). This is pure mainline bypass. I'm sure it will also suck capacity out of JFK and EWR to some extent as well, possibly causing some down-gauging there eventually, and in some cases causing mainline to drop to outsourced RJ.

This is starting to go beyond cockeyed optimism and constructive engagement and sneaking into the realm of Baghdad Bob. The fact that mass outsourcing is supposed to bring us 200 million a year in revenues that will supposedly help our next contract is one of the biggest double-u tee eff's in critical thinking I've seen in a long time. I mean srsly, are we really going down that road again after the last decade and a half? If that's true, then outsourcing is good for us and ergo more outsourcing would be even better?

At least they mentioned scope though. That's a start I guess. But that letter is proof positive that we still have a lot of work to do not only in negotiating with the company but in fortifying our own foundation in the first place before we do.

buzzpat

Hasn't stopped us from funneling our crews and passengers through all of that asbestos. What a mess. Its embarrassing. I hate flying out of 6. It feels like a nasty Greyhound terminal in a third world country.

gloopy

Yes, although USAir was also losing money trying to fly the biggest O&D market in the galaxy on high CASM fuel sucking RJ's to begin with. Duplicating their failed business plan was hardly the goal I thought. Meanwhile JB is dominating NYC domestic with an all mainline product with inherently lower CASM and that's almost exclusively out of JFK, where NY'ers supposedly don't really even want to fly. LGA is supposed to be super premium NYC flying yet we can't even put our smallest mainline planes on 90-something percent of the new routes.

As for the terminal bridge, I'm sure we will be bussing pax between the two while the bridge is built, but like I mentioned earlier, I don't expect a whole lot of connections there in the first place. Very few routes flow well through NYC for that and those that do can be done through other hubs just as easily in most cases anyway. The slot swap was primarily about single point O&D and the fact that its 90-something percent outsourced RJ's means mainline won't get very much "feed" in the first place. As an added bonus, we could see down-gauging in JFK and EWR as a result of this if the O&D pax really do prefer LGA. Just enough to outsource, not quite enough to justify mainline. High CASM, inferior product, few to no additional Delta pilot jobs. This is shaping up to make the AS code share check valve look like a good deal. At least we get some widebody feed from the mass outsourcing and narrow-body stagnation on the west coast. All we will get in LGA is supposedly revenue that we hope we will get a piece of. As if we haven't fallen for that trick before.

Bucking Bar

This break sponsored by "Friends of ALPA," a political inaction committee made up of underemployed pilots. Cheers to sitting around, growing a beard and looking at pictures of Mila Kunis.

newKnow

Hummm. I know you are right and I admit I don't look at this stuff every day, but why am I wrong?

newKnow

Bucking Bar

What I fear is that by the time the real horse trading starts we'll be starting to enjoy attrition, jets will be coming off mod lines, -900's will be showing up and we will be working our way back to even with Air France. Everybody seems to forget scope when their career starts doing a little better.

We need to remember scope from the perspective of saving this profession, even if we are not the direct beneficiaries when we get our chance at the plate.

Amish Pilot

Bar, I guess I'm not the only one who has not flown since Thanksgiving. I did get my six short calls and I think I may have to fly the 24,25 & 26 though.