Frank,

In practice a little different model comes into play.

Today, to attend Delta's outsourcing party you have to BYOA (Bring Your Own Airplane). Folks won't pick up a $30 million dollar jet without a firm, long term, commitment. They seek the longest, strongest, contract they can get to lock Delta in. They want 30 years, Delta wants 30 days, they seem to compromise around 5 years (on average).

Under contract Delta is locked in, meaning that capacity is paid for whether it flies or not. So where is the real accumulator in the system? What part of Delta's network is unencumbered by debt and can be parked with minimal economic cost? .... You can tell an accumulator by what it does ... "we're expanding MD88 flying" "no we are getting rid of the DC9's" "we're keeping the DC9's" "We're getting more MD90's" "no, we aren't" ... "DC9's until 2013" It all depends on the configuration of our Corporate airplane that instant, are we landing, departing, or going missed?

Ironic that the only airplane in the fleet with unpressurized hydraulic reservoirs are our job accumulators. As we suck up the gear and the flaps for a nice flight in 2012, we'll see the MD88 accumulator get filled. If we lose an engine and expect an emergency landing, that same accumulator will be drained.

To add to your point, outsourcing implies we are paying parasitic shareholder groups what it costs to run their redundant airline operations.

It has to be more efficient to insource for the right rates.

Bar,
Great points. If DAL need to shrink and the DCI arm of DAL is at their floors in the CPA, the bottom DAL jets are the accumulator.

Glad to see everyone getting called on the survey.

Having seen the Fred Smith Show from the Jumpseat, it is indeed a thing of beauty. Cheers!

Bar,
On a side note, it is impressive to see the progression at airlines that want to perform their own flying.
NKS has upgrades under five years
Emirates looks like they are going with Direct Entry Capt's
Hawaiian has grown their pilot group by over 25% in the last year
ALK has impressive growth numbers

I said a few weeks ago that DAL is trying to find how much they can shrink before their RASM starts to hit the back side of the power curve. Last month they still saw a 14% increase in RASM. I would say that they can shrink a little further as long as it does not effect the efficency of their hub network.

P-S-P

People

Service

Profit

Great book written many years ago on FDX. They know what their people want to be happy and provide max effort.

BTW, a few of my friends over there state that they are about ready to announce a large 757/767 order and as a result wil open their app window again.

Do they call back? Got my survey call, told 'em to call back in a few hours and it's been a few days?

Just wondering.

They will not if they were able to find another pilot to answer in your demograpic group.

Interesting. What do you mean by "conniption"? Do you mean how they would react if we were to walk in with the SWA contract in hand and say "we demand this?" I would not call the reaction to that a "conniption". THe reaction would probably be something more akin to stifled laughter and quiet celebration in the knowledge that that ain't gonna happen, and then they would have us at BK wages and work rules for the forseeable future. See: AMR

We know what happens to airplanes on the "back side of the power curve," right? The next maneuver in the syllabus is "stall recovery" as the power needed to maintain flight quickly and sharply exceeds what is available. The airplane will descend uncontrollably or depart controlled flight all together.

I'd submit we should maintain no less than V2+15. To climb requires excess airspeed.

I'll also submit that our next management team will be critical of this management team lack of interest in our airline.