I have used the Golden Touch van from JFK to LGA a few times before. It's been a year or so since I did it, but walk out to the 2nd curb at Kennedy and you'll see a sign for them. There should be a guy selling tickets. I believe I paid $12. The van run continuously, or at least it used to. I called the main dispatch number and they gave me all the info.

Good Luck,
Vol

 

Possibly a ferry flight. Without a load the MD88 is very light on the nose. Had this happen a couple of times just turning into the gate with empty airplanes.

 

A bit off the topic "de jour", but an interesting state of the industry from a personal story.

Had dinner with my brother last night who works for a regional and was in town on an overnight. He has decided to quit flying and flip houses full time. He has been doing that off and on for about ten years now, and has done about 12 I think. He is just off Probbie at his job , and he has run the numbers long term and decided he will make more money in the next 10 to 20 years doing that than he will struggleing up through the industry to get to a mainline, and then what make ...100-150k?

Now I know that not every young guy(or girl) coming up has the skill or oppertunity to walk away, but this says volumes about where this profession is at and is headed.

We need to turn this ship around and reverse this trend.

 

He/She was simply aligning the nose wheel to correct for the 90' crosswind.

 

About a year ago I was non-reving, MCO-BOS. Or I should say, I wanted to go MCO-BOS, but since we gave that market to Air Tran and JB, we are down to only one MD88 and one A320 a day, MCO-BOS, and they were both full, so I had to go to JFK, then to LGA, then the shuttle to BOS.

When I got to JFK I asked a DL agent about this much rumored 'bus to LGA', she said it comes by every half hour...or so. I went out to the curb to wait for it, where I started talking to another pax, who happened to also be going to LGA, but had a friend in NYC who was coming to pick her up and drive her to LGA, but they didn't know the LGA airport layout, or how to find the Shuttle Gates. So I said I'd be glad to show them the way, for a ride to LGA.

Luckily we were both going to the BOS Shuttle (Marine Air Terminal) so I didn't have to wait on the DL bus, but there is one, for our conneting pax, about every 30 mins, or so I was told. You may want to call the NYC CPO and ask them for the exact times and other details.

 

Or, bid reserve, get a good manager, flip houses until you get PO'd at banks and drunks. ... then yellow slip until you get tired of hotels that have no coffee at 05:30, then decide you really want to sling sheetrock mud for a couple of days ... enjoy making more than some Captains (as well as the flexibility to quit either job). Rinse, wash repeat.

Because of the cost of Delta's benefits, most regional Captains will see a five year or more break even at Delta to replace their take home pay. The guys who have been furloughed and have stagnated for a decade have really had it rough.

Having more than one job is a blessing. It would be great to have just one job and focus on flying, but continued displacement bids and pay cuts pretty much force the issue.

 

No, you just didn't pay attention.

IF you are a top scale 737 CA you only need an 11% raise in HOURLY rates to be equivalent to SW 737 CA who contributes 7% of his pay into his 401k.

There are WAY, WAY too many qualifiers in the "original author's" statement to make that a useful fact(but it IS a fact).

I do not consider that(SWA rate+DC) as a part of what I will use to determine an "industry leading" contract.

The devil is in the details.... and my Rep feels the same way!

 

I know I'll probably regret entering into this discussion about the contract negotiations but I just read through the information and posts that Alpha and others recently shared and the ensuing beat down that was given to him afterwards.

I should preface that I am not a die-hard ALPA or DPA supporter. I think the two organizations are a healthy way of creating competition, which keeps both organizations on their toes and ultimately makes us stronger. I also hope for significant contractual improvements in 2012, which focuses heavily on recapturing scope.

Although Alpha's numbers in his analysis may not have been an exact "apples to apples" comparison of airlines, I think his general point shouldn't be missed. The point is that we are only worth what the market will bear. Do I think we as Delta pilots are worth more? Absolutely, but that doesn't really matter. If other airline pilots are willing to work for less, then we can't expect to get a huge contract increase that prices us significantly above the market.

I'm in the process of selling my house and I think a good analogy to the current contract negotiations is the current housing market situation. I know what my house is worth based on what I payed for it, the upgrades I've made to it, the location, etc... However, I also know I'll never get that much for it because the market is in control of the selling price of my house. I can't sell my house for what it's worth because there are other houses in my neighborhood that are selling for way less. There is even one that's in foreclosure that hurts the price of my house even more.

So we as Delta pilots have this great house (Delta Air Lines) that we feel is superior to other houses for sale. Unfortunately, other houses on our street (United, US Airways, Jetblue, etc...) are willing to sell their house for less than it's worth. Then the house that's in foreclosure (American bankruptcy) drives the price of all of our houses down even more. There are also a bunch of cheap pre-fab homes (Regionals) that people were buying like crazy for the last 10 years, which flooded the housing market and are now falling apart. Sure there is the guy down the street that sold his house a few years ago for what his house was worth (Southwest), but the owner is now seeing potential financial problems and already asking to renegotiate the terms on his deal.

So anyway, even though I know we have this great airline with the best pilots in the world, it's unlikely that we will get a contract that equals what I think we're worth because of the current market. Sure we could ask for what we're worth and we don't budge off of that number because of our principals, but I think we'll be sitting here in two years with our same house and no still no buyers.

 

Gotta love 24R....
The small print says China Airlines, we wouldn't want a Delta jet flying there from LA would we... ;-)

Gotta disagree on the alliances going forward.

Emirates, Quatar and Etihad aren't in any alliance and are doing just fine, in fact they are cleaning most other international airlines' clock...

The threat going forward is more in the JVs and "enhanced" codeshare agreements, than in the alliance assuming the role of the air carrier.

LH has done well controlling Swiss and Austrian. AIRFRANCE kept the KLM brand. The brands will prevail as ticket sellers, but the flights will be operated by any number of operators.

Look who JB is going to codeshare with:
Regulations.gov

At LAX the Virgin Australia codeshare is about to become a revenue sharing JV without the pesky alliance stuff... Oh and guess who has a codeshare agreement with VA? You guessed it, Emirates...

So the future is more likely to hold more codeshares and JVs, where our Section 1 permits just about anything in exchange for 4 flights a week and a cap of 175 seats...

We're a cheap date ;-)

Cheers
George

 

Thing is when a neighbor like DAL sets their value at the same level or higher than SWA the pressure on ticket prices goes up as well.

The ideal solution would be to have everyone's wages/benefits tied together and all go up at the same time (like oil) that keeps the costs even for all companies and simply results in the costs being passed on to the customers.

Unfortunately, contracts are not negotiated all at once (even within ALPA) so we have to negotiate seperately. It does not mean that we cannot negotiate a large raise however, we just need others to follow suit. Instead of looking at it like "lets not end up like SWA", maybe "lets help SWA raise the bar" is more appropriate.