Ferd149

I agree, why I said keep your reps informed on what you want.

Bar, I'm assuming the "ratios" are block hours or utilization rates? What is the history about this from C2K that you talked about in a previous post?

Ferd

gloopy

The vast majority of the "penalty" are the leases that we are paying for anyway, in many cases directly and not even laundered through anyone. If we instantly parked every single 50 seater yet continued to pay the leases then of course it would add up to a very large "penalty".

My point on the 50's is that they aren't nearly as ecoomically viable in their current quantities as we presently have and therefore the company wants to reduce them significantly further. We know this, and the company admits this.

There is therefore constant and I believe permamant pressure to reduce them and at this point it is merely a matter of where on the lease rate/revenue potential curve each 50 seater is in terms of justifying its continued existance. At some point its cheaper to park an aircraft, any aircraft, from 50 seater to 747, rather than operate it even if you're still on the hook for the lease payments. Even if you add in penalties to the ACMI operators, the lease payment is by far the biggest part of the penalty for early withdrawl.

Couple that with the fact that the leases start to run out anyway on many of them in the not too distant future (FTB/George have a spreadsheet for this?) and it becomes a matter of degree that is quite manageable. 20 years left on a lease of a parked plane is one thing, 6 months is another. You don't have to wait to the absolute end of a lease to park a money hemorrhaging plane. Besides its mid 2012; I can't imagine we'd be on the hook for decades of 50 seater leases and if so who made that decision and have they gotten any bonuses recently?


There will be, but its the fine print and not the bullet points we need to be concerned with, this time more than usual. I suspect a very, very hard core sell job to relax scope more especially at the DC-9-10 replacement jet level. While some well intended intellects on here have engaged in high philosophy about the merits of the "total package" of just a few more large RJ's in exchange for massive fixes in every other scope area, well, I just don't see that happeing. There is only so much value to another 50 or even 100 76 seaters. Its not a "game changer" for management and the costs for operating the additional jets at DCI vs mainline, while different in percentage, just don't add up to that many dollars ammortized over the entire operation. Its just not that big of a savings for them...therefore...they won't offer massive earth shattering fixes for other issues.

But the net effect on our jobs will be more stagnation and shrink while we attrit. We will pay far more dearly for more DC9 replacement jets at DCI than we will gain, whatever the "trade off" is because the jets just aren't worth that much to the company and we are only going to get a small portion of whatever that is worth to divvy up amongst ourselves. That is why scope sales are always and forever epic fails.

This is how it will be marketed, yes. But again, more 76 seaters is not a cmpany saving game changer. The savings is minor in the grand scheme of things and we will only get a small part of those savings to apply elsewhere. There is no way management is going to give us massive other gains in exchange for some more 76 seaters. It just isn't worth that much.

Absolutely!

I agree again, although this is what I'm worried about. I think its obvious that we're being set up for another scope sale with more outsourced DC9 replacement jets at the cut throat low ball bidders at DCI. With an already large fleet of 255 of these, even a few more will start to rapidly lessen the relevance of our 125 seaters (A319 and 737-700) whose combined subfleet count is already small. More DC9 replacement jets in the form of large RJs...possibly larger in seats and/or weight than what's allowed currently (clearly paving the way for Mitsu/Sukhoi/C Series later) will make those jets in our fleet even more easilly replaceable.

If we get the 717s it will be ONLY because we were getting them anyway. The fit that plane may or may not be to our fleet and the terms we get them on will have NOTHING to do with more large RJs at DCI. But if we get them, more large RJs at DCI will provide fierce pressure against the very planes we may have traded scope away to get.

acl65pilot

Think of this for a second:

Based on the information people seem to be connecting, lets look at a small jet scope rewrite like this :

We will not be allowing more "76 seat jets". What will transpire is the allowing of the current 102 70 seat jets to remain and Dal not have to return them to bring on a 76 sestet as we grow with a small jet order. The 76 seat flying will be tied to mainline growth both up and down but the 70 seaters will be allowed to operate under the DCI banner and not be returned. We may see a hard cap on all dci flying as well. It gets rids us of the three for one, gets rid of the company keeping large rj's after mainline shrinks and may tie block hrs on these jets to the block hrs or asm's of mainline.

I am just thinking here but after talking to the pilots rinning my phone off the hook and reading everything I have read, this seems to be a logical result we will see wrt to small jet flying.

Thoughts?

gloopy

I also think that's EXACTLY what they will try and hoodwink us with. And that's how it will be sold. But lets disect that for a moment.

Does it really get rid of the 3:1?

Well yes. And no. The 3:1 we have, while one sided on principal, is already maxed out. The only thing the company could do is a pump and dump where they trip park planes at mainline just to go from 153 of 255 all the way to 255 of 255. Then they could shrink mainline and keep the 255. However in order to do that, they would have to park 102 70s. That would be a very marginal ROI for them and we would still be protected at 255 no mater what they do.

What you propose they will propose (and I think they will too) is to keep the 70's and get to run up the 76ers. It is insane for us to even consider agreeing to this. Even if the shrinkage of 76ers is tied to mainline, a 5 or 10% shrinkage in mainline would be a huge event for us, while a 5 or 10% shrinkage in DCI would be marginal for the company. The ratio to get it in our favor would have to be so severe that it would never stand up to even the most pilot friendly definition of force majeure or whatever. Like: If we park 1% more mainline all 76ers go away instantly or at least on a 20:1 ratio. But there is no way we're getting that. We will be sold the illusion of that instead.

As for the "hard cap" on DCI, with so much DCI lift still 50s that are going away anyway, of cource management would give us a hard cap. Thats a zero cost item. Zero. Get rid of 50's and let in more DC9 replacement cancer jets and of course they will agree to less total at DCI. But thats not better for us at all.

I really can't believe we are about to fall for this and throw them into the briar patch just like they want.

gloopy

The over all growth of an airline this size has nothing to do with allowing a few more 76 seaters or not. We are either going to grow because of market conditions or we are not.

Trying to bribe us with the present business cycle is ridiculous. And there is no way more large RJ's is really going to cause an airline this massive to grow. If we fall for that one we are even dumber than they think we are.

scambo1

Tool!!

We when I come down in my new suit, I'll have soup on my tie and rib grease on my fingers.

Bill Lumberg

But a NO vote for ALPA is also a NO vote for the company. The company LOVES ALPA. Voting for another union is a double smack.

Bill Lumberg

The difference is 4000+ pilots took the time to fill out a card and actually send it in. That shows displeasure, at least. So, throw in a weak TA and the sell game along with it, and that may actually push it over the edge.

gloopy

I've thought about that too. I have no problem with a vote of public record where any DALPA pilot can see how the entire list voted if the trade off is 100% reliability and accountability. It'll never happen though.

LandGreen2

I bet if we started a new thread here on APC (so it is easy to find for all); had one of the resident English gifted students write a generic letter that could be easily cut/copy/pasted/emailed; many letters would FLOOD our reps Inboxes this weekend!

They might get quite a few letters from other airline guys worried about a scope giveaway too!