The 739 would have to come up a lot to be with the ER. The ER is an international jet that will be around up to 25 more years, and therefore lumped with the International jets, but your point is correct.

That would be WN/DAL playing hardball...

Cheers
George

Finally, some good rumors, speculation, talk about AEs, displacements, hiring, roadshow reports, etc....
MUCH better than wading through 15 pages of pointless arguing about whether or not we'll see the opener like we had to over the last several days... The DALPA/DPA arguments just totally deflate this thread. If we had a "bringing the thread dowwwwwnnnn Penalty Box" then T, Carl, gearjerk, and scambo would be in it for last week! Except Carl seemed to be pretty reasonable, he just never stops replying no matter how silly the other guy's post. And yes, I waded through it all hoping for the occasional nugget (like routes Virgin is adding and we're stopping etc.), and because like you all I'm strangely addicted to reading all this drivel. I just can't figure out why...

I'm nearly convinced management is kicking the can down the road until they are sure who will operate the 100 seat jets (configured for 86 seats at American?) We will see.

Although we are making money, management appears convinced (by their network decisions) that we are in counter trend rally.

I love that quote:"There is no money in cargo"..Yet everybody is doing it.:D

kind of like the new line:
"The 787s arent impressive"...Yet everybody's lined up to buy them.:D

TEN

2012 pay table
12 YR CAPT FO
ER 188.96 129.06
73-9 182.14 124.40

I wouldn't say it has to come up a whole lot.

I had the same thought last night! The DL news has been so depressing lately I've been tempted to get away from APC for awhile and put my head in the sand. I was going to ask advice here on how to give up the L&G habit, but I realized I'd be asking THE WRONG GUYS! Your dealer won't tell you how to give up crack, either.

In other news, SWA opening a DEN base. Hockey44, do you like the mountains?

I'm afraid there is a purpose to the madness....By constraining growth now, DAL is in a much better position to argue the necessity of a merger/acquisition and gain approval from regulators.
The benefit of further industry consolidation is the prize that lets mgmt. give up market share and CASM in the interim, because the end game is a far more powerful market position.

Unfortunately there will be a price paid for displacement bids, base shuffles and pushing the PWA to the limit of the intent. In the words of C.E. Woolman:

"Good will pays dividends...and good will is an asset that won't show up on the balance sheet, but is the most important factor in operating a successful airline."

Cheers
George

There is no money in cargo. I mean who can afford to operate a cargo plane, much less a brand spanking new one in ATL no less?

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...32083260_n.jpg

I want to see the Cargolux and BA 748Fs on the ground in ATL at the same time. Then I want a picture next to "there is no money in cargo."

Although I will say there is probably a lot of money in counter-to-counter cargo which we can do very well. Of course I have a buddy here at DAL, an FO on the mighty 88, he left ATL to go skiing in either SLC or DEN but his personal ski's never showed up. 3 or 4 weeks later they arrived back in ATL. They'd been to China. What a waste.

About 99% of SWA's (PMSWA that is) fleet is about the same seat count as our smallest mainline plane (DC-9). Even if you blended the DC-9, A320 and all 737's (including the 900) and made them all pay SWA rates (and W2's) and went one or two more pay bandings up for widebodies and large widebodies according to our same percentage differences now, we wouldn't be getting any pay cuts compared to our current rates because their current rates are our highest rates in the first place.

IOW, the problem isn't nearly as much the lack of LBP (which I know was where you were driving at) but rather the fact that our rates (and W-2's) are drastically behind SWA's small narrowbody pay to begin with.

To put it another way, if the entire company got bumped down to 130 seat equipment at SWA rates (and/or W-2) just about everyone would get a raise (and many a massive raise) compared to now. While we stress out about a few bucks an hour between a 75 and 73-9 our entire pay scales are getting smoked by our largest and most profitable domestic competitor. That's what needs to be fixed first.

When guys are getting bumped all the way *down* to SWA pay then we can start complaining about the fairness of seat based pay.