All in favor of "early outs" with medical coverage say aye.

 

I think it's a worthy addition to this thread. The Company said they will approve long term leave. If a guy can make $150,000 more for a year's work, it is a consideration. For those of us considering punching out, it is a very interesting direction for the thread to go.

Wonder what the CPO would say if you were to fill in the blank:

ANTICIPATED RETURN DATE: When Delta indicates an interest in performing its own flying.

... those planning on staying are all thinking about how to MacGyver the MD88 into something resembling safe flight ... we ned to start with tasks around the house. Need to fill a bucket?

 

Delta CEO prefers stability over flash in aircraft fleet


Puget Sound Business Journal by Steve Wilhelm, Staff Writer
Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012, 2:55pm PST - Last Modified: Thursday, February 9, 2012, 3:04pm PST



Steve Wilhelm
Staff Writer - Puget Sound Business Journal
Email Richard Anderson, CEO of the world’s biggest airline in terms of fleet size, is more focused on reliable aircraft performance than fuel economy, and more on flight frequency than aircraft size.

During a visit to Seattle this week to lecture on leadership at the University of Washington University of Washington Latest from The Business Journals Delta CEO prefers stability over flash in airplane fleet Countdown: 10 best college valuesSeattle competing with other cities for a satellite federal patent office branch Follow this company Foster School of Business, Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines Latest from The Business Journals Delta CEO prefers stability over flash in airplane fleet TSA to add expedited screening in Fort LauderdaleRepublic Air says Frontier has potential buyers Follow this company CEO Anderson offered some surprises as he took a few minutes to share his views on aircraft acquisition and fleet management.

For starters, he isn’t restive to get the Boeing Boeing Latest from The Business Journals Delta CEO prefers stability over flash in airplane fleet Boeing: 787 fuselage issues won't slow productionSpirit AeroSystems earnings dipped in fourth quarter Follow this company 787, despite the fact that Delta was one of the the first U.S. carriers to order it, just after All Nippon Airways.

“We were very early in the queue,” Anderson said during a Jan. 8 conversation at Seattle’s Four Seasons Hotel. “I shook hands with (former Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO) Alan Mulally on that airplane in 2003. We had dinner and decided the 787 was for us.”

But since then, Anderson has actually pushed Delta’s delivery dates for the 787 back until 2020 and is holding off entirely on ordering any more, or any of the Airbus competitor, the A350.

“We need to have some certainty about delivery schedule. So instead we made an investment in our existing fleet, put interiors in the existing fleet,” he said. ‘We need to see the 787 and A350 be successful ...We need certainty about when airplanes are going to come.”

Anderson added that Delta is carefully watching Boeing’s (NYSE: BA) plan to raise 787 production to 10 monthly by the end of the 2013, as well as its work to create a larger model, the 787-9.

“Regularity and dependabilty is really important in our business,” he said. “Boeing will get through the 787-8 launch, the airplane will mature, and we’ll be interested in taking look at 787-9 and A350 once those airplanes materialize.”

So that means that Delta is putting a lot of money into upgrading its large fleet of aluminum wide bodies — Boeing 767s and 777s and Airbus A330s.

“We’re working fast and furious to have 767s retrofitted,” he said.

But wait, isn’t fuel burn the pivotal question for airlines? And what about Boeing’s 737 Max?

While Anderson acknowledges that rising fuel prices are pushing on margins, he said Delta has no leanings toward trying to covert its order for 100 737-900s with equivalent and more fuel efficient 737-9 Max aircraft.

For one thing, he needs the planes now. For another, he wants the aircraft to prove itself.

“We’re satisfied with the Boeing order we have and the options we have,” he said. “We like being the customers on a mature airplane that’s stretched, economics are good on the airplane. It’s a very reliable aircraft.”

And up on the top range of his fleet, Anderson has no plans to replace Delta’s 16 Boeing 747-400s with new 747-8s, and certainly not with even larger Airbus A380s, he said.

That’s because business travelers want frequency, and they’re Delta’s lifeblood, he said.

As an example, he points to Delta’s decision to double flights between Seattle and Amsterdam to twice daily, and its four-times daily flights between London and New York.

A bigger airplane would mean less frequency for the same number of seats.

“We would rather have frequency in a market with an efficient airplane; that creates greater convenience for our customers,” he said. “If you tell customers at JFK we’re going to cancel all our flights, and fly one 600-seat aircraft, you would have passengers go to higher levels of convenience.”

 

What he means by frequency and maturity over efficiency is that he loves having multiple CRJs fly from large hubs to major cities each day rather than have them be flown by mainline aircraft.

 

Yikes! The last 10 pages have been depressing.

Time to play some GTA 3 on my iPad.

 

Funny.

In reality, if they actually displace I wonder if they would approve leaves longer than the march 2013 timeframe.

 

Speechless.

I wonder if the company asks pilots to do these things. Personally, I wouldn't have done it if asked. However, I feel a little ostracized from the rest of the employee group because we seem to never be involved in anything like this.

 

There are also those among our junior ranks that will trade a 5% raise for another no furlough clause.

Carl

 

I think you are mistaken on that. I cannot speak for other but it was not a top priority for me.

 

And yippie, another 8-12 pilot jobs gone to DCI.

Nu