Gloopy, remember that the 739 order was primarily because it was handed to us so cheap by Boeing, not because we are 100% Boeing. Everyone in flight ops thought the order was going airbus until they came in with that deal.

I'm holding out hope that we snag the NEO because it is such a far superior product, but I wouldn't hold my breath on any major domestic aircraft retrofits until this cap ex freeze gets lifted. We aren't even installing winglets on the 757s anymore.

I thought we were installing winglets on all 75's except the old NWA a/c that cannot be modified and therefore planned for the first retirements?

It's still planned as far as I know but seems to have ceased actively occurring.

According to the Boeing website:

737-800 Range: 3115 NM Cargo: 1555 Sq. Ft.
737-900ER Range: 3265 NM Cargo: 1824 Sq. Ft.

But still......MD-88 don't care.

Sorry about my phone ediing hack job, but ... what is no one else will pick up Pinnacle's flying for their agreed price? Delta has been trying to help them avoid this by increasing reimbursement rates as Pinnacle's costs rose.

My question is more pilot focused ... what happens to the guys we "promised" flow through agreements to if their airline ceases to exist? That is one reason I like seniority numbers better than flow through agreements. You can't trust management to keep (or even be able to keep) a promise in this industry.

I appreciate what Boeing says, but I don't buy off on what manufacturers say on range.

I guess I see the 738 as having better runway performance so if it can get its load off the ground and fly it far then it has a better punch. But in the back of my mind I was thinking more of getting a 739 off the runway in LGA and going far but I forget LGA has range limitations though.

My bet is the 800 is still the better plane for full long range flying. It's like the CAL pilot told us that on the 739 it requires full length 22R out of EWR to get to SLC while the heavies take the intersection to go to Europe and Asia.

And no, the MD-88 don't care. ;)

Problem is they're not doing enough north-south runs. Can I get an amen?

I just checked flightaware and Jetblue has theirs running right now from JFK-LAX so I think it has the range, never flown it obviously.

I think there will be a 73 base, with 100-150ish more 737s coming I don't see why not nor why they'd have to cut flying from one base and move to another like they did with the A320. Maybe a growth airplane unless we really do start parking the 757s.

Where do you guys go out of DTW? Is it just back and forth between LAX or the entire west coast?

PCL corp in a message to it's employess stated that they are making money on the 180 CRJ's operated for Delta. They are losing money on the Q-400's and SF-340 for United and 15 CRJ-900 operated for Delta. I don't see the company being disolved but most likely shrinking.

If I'm not mistaken you fly until you're in bucket 2.

To me this is how it technically could play out if the raw score buckets are large (80 points for bucket 1 on ATL88B which would be like 130 points for bucket 1 on NYC7ER):
Obviously there isn't a two pilot reserve category but when you take into account how the RUO works come every Monday and Tuesday then the pilots in the 40-50th percentile become the bottom pilots like pilot 2 in the above example.

They fly until they hit bucket 2, followed by the pilots in 30-40th percentile and so on up. The lucky pilots will hit 2 4-days and be in bucket 2, the others will be at the top of the RUO until the month is over.

Depending on the category, like ATLM88B, given the top 10% generally don't fly until week 3 or 4 anyways under the current raw system then with the new system they won't fly at all IF the first RAW score bucket is as large as 80 points.

So that's why i see this as a big change or loss of seniority for those in the top 11-50% of reserve. If the idea the most junior pilots are the ones who will in place of the senior pilots is not the case, it's the top half that will fly in place of the senior pilots. That's why I think given its category dependent that some categories need not have a raw score as high as 80, but from my talks with the union, it sure sounds like it will be.

Ftb,

I think you are leaving out an important part of the big picture that will have a noticeable impact and that is the buckets only count for guys with the same days of availability. I think this is going to have smoothing out effect to your concerns.

Denny

I'd agree if we staffed weekends the same as weekdays, we don't anymore.

So on monday/tuesday those with 4-5 days of availability are the ones with weekends off. The bottom pilot there is around 50% so they're #1 on the RUO, give or take. It's how it is on the first week of the month but now it'll be like this for 3 weeks possibly longer.

Now again all of this is negated with appropriate size buckets but if the buckets are large they're taking from senior pilots to give to the most senior pilots. We could change the mantra from you'll be senior one day to you just need to be #1.