Nobody's saying they're not investing in the company. They clearly are in order to sustain the size of the business they wish to have. That has NOTHING to do with the fact that we are slowly liquidating. We are operating ~70 aircraft less than we did after the merger, we are laying off non-frontline employees, we are selling off real estate and business centers, and we are not replacing the hundreds of pilots that have retired with new hires. Management is slowly liquidating. Period. Bury your head in the sand all you wish for whatever purpose you choose to do it, but those are the facts.

Carl

 

There is some truth to what you say...some. I recall during C2K negotiations overhearing some pilots in the lounge making statements like "I'm worth $xxx" "I demand $xxx or I will vote no" etc. I was a fly on the wall, but I thought to myself "says who?"

At the time I had two businesses that I had started from scratch. As a business owner, especially during startup, sometimes you make less than your employees and work harder and longer than they do. The goal of having employees is that sometimes you get the part of the profit they generate.

Long story short, if you are skilled and enjoy something, you can make $50K your first year just by hanging your shingle. It takes effort or a special market to break $100K quickly. It takes size and employees (scale) to go higher than that - $100K is a (rough) ceiling in most parts of the country. That is from personal experience and based upon my businesses (car lot and construction co.)

I have friends that just know how to make money...they can be counted on one hand. The rest of us just have to slug it out to grow our businesses.

This only has moderate application to our piloting skill set. The world market says we are worth more than our domestic market...a lot more. Even at world market levels, there are those among us who have proven what they are worth by actually making tons of money and running successful and growing businesses.

If you think only like a w-2 recipient, you may be mostly right - there are a limited number of jobs you can just walk into making $120K plus. If you think differently and are willing to do what it takes, $120k/year would be looked at like a sky is falling, bad year.

 

100% spot on.

Carl

 

Tip of the hat sir...if I wore one that is.

Carl

 

I'm not sure about this assesment:

For now, the success of small airlines with strong brands is likely to begin pushing against the branding approach of larger airlines. "I think the pressure is going to come from the regional guys that are getting pretty good at creating a unique experience and delivering around it," says Andrew Pierce, U.S. President of brand consultancy firm Prophet. "Those guys are going to become more formidable." They could chip away at the edges of a market that big carriers guard closely.

I guess "big carriers guarding closely" doesn't contradict Delta giving the west coast to Alaska, and sending more planes to RAH after they bought Frontier and Midwest?

 

It's not news, it's the AJC!

[FYI - 500,000 pets fly per year. Only 35 died, due to health problems, not mishandling.]

More pets died on Delta than any other airline *| ajc.com

More pets died on Delta than any other airline

By Kelly Yamanouchi
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

More pets died on Delta Air Lines than on any other carrier last year, according to data released by the federal government.


Out of 35 pets that died on airlines last year, 19 died on Delta flights. That's up from 16 the previous year.

Delta said it carries more pets than many other airlines, in part because of its broad route network. The number of pets that are injured or die on the airline is less than 0.2 percent of pets carried, Delta said.

Many carriers such as AirTran and Southwest don't carry pets as checked baggage in the cargo hold. Some pets also are transported in the cabin as carry-ons, but the deaths were all in the hold.

"The loss of any pet is unacceptable to us," Delta spokesman Anthony Black said. "We are working to improve the processes and procedures to ensure that every pet arrives safely at its destination."

One of Delta's latest changes came in December, when it stopped accepting snub-nosed dogs or cats as checked items. Delta already had banned American, English and French bulldogs from flying. That came after a sharp increase in the number of animals that ran into trouble on Delta flights, particularly bulldogs, which are susceptible to respiratory problems.

In most cases, pet deaths are not caused by mishandling but because the pets run into health issues in the cargo hold environment, Delta said. The Humane Society of the United States recommends not transporting pets by air "unless absolutely necessary" because of the risks.

 

That is one of the first things I thought about when I first heard about that accident. We're all professionals and, by nature, are good at compartmentalizing stuff. But there's only so much pressure you can put on a human being without the risk of effecting performance. After a cumulative 42% pay cut, loss of pension, and outsourcing of thousands of our jobs, I think we were very lucky to get through 2005/2006 without some kind of major catastrophe.

 

I've looked at expat flying very carefully ever since the bankruptcy. I have a number of types and command time that most contract carriers would find attractive. My problem is I don't like long-haul international. I hate the hours and I don't handle the time changes well.

The quality and experience of your f/o can really vary. I hate the thought of being solo for 90 plus hours a month, month after month. That must wear on you.

That leaves me with the middle tier of expat jobs. Right now, it's still a wash between MaDelta and those other jobs. But, with world wide supply and demand, it may not remain a wash. In that case, I may take my marbles and go play elsewhere.
It's pretty much a wash compensation wise for me. So, I stick around -- for now.

I think the 320 job in Vietnam looks like the nicest contract situation from a quality of life standpoint. Plus, I like Vietnamese food.

 

In that case, it's amazing Comair didn't wreck a third of the fleet after the announcement in Sept. 2010. I can't even remember the big announcement days before 5191 - certainly it wasn't nearly as specific as we're cutting the airline in half. Maybe that was the first, but there've been so many since then they lost effect after a while.

I do remember flying the same flight two weeks later and having to ask Ground for a progressive to the runway. He thought I was being smart with him, but the charts didn't match what we saw out the window. That place was a mess.

 

How about tic?

TEN