We got some gains on our narrow body scope in our last contract, trading a couple hundred 50 seat RJ's for 717's but we also allowed more 76 seat RJ's.

Don't forget the scope at the other end of the food chain, where the big money is (for pilot pay). We need to tighten up our International Flying JV language and bring more of our International Code Sharing back in house too.

 

Scope on the lower end has run its course. With all the 50-seaters getting parked I don't see us spending any negotiating capital on lower end scope. They won't get the limit of large RJ's raised again, but I do know they would love to be able to run them with 83 seats, so they may attempt that.

I would bet if anything happens it will be management wanting to bring at least the E jet fleet to mainline so they can actually staff that flying. We won't give up anything for it, but if management wants it, they can give us something in return for it.

 

Don't forget that Delta can fly any size aircraft it wants at mainline already. The scope section merely allows for a specified number to be flown by pilots and airlines other than DAL.

 

I would love to get the jumbo RJ flying here.

I am loving cheap gas. Hate that it makes RJ flying that much more economical, but I'll take the cheap gas and hope that staffing issues drive flying back to mainline.

 

I'm hoping that's the way it's going too!

 

This is interesting to the DAL C2015 considerations, but it is a bigger problem the entire industry is going to have to deal with soon.

Agreed with all of the above. Not convinced it will drive flying to mainline, there is a lot of shrinkage in the FFD world that can be absorbed, but the cracks are getting bigger and bigger (aka HUGE) in the DCI/UAX/AE world.

XJT is shedding 100 50 seaters for United this year,
Envoy is steadily retiring EMB44/50's (say 30 this year),
Endeavor is likely parking roughly 40-50 of their 50 seaters,
and ASA is prob. parking 20-30 of their CRJ-200's.
RP is parking their remaining 37/50 seat EMB's too, after gaining some E175's, the net loss will be about 20-30 airframes.

@9 pilots per plane, for 225 planes, that equals roughly 2000 less pilot jobs.

If you add back in the CPZ/PSA/PDT minor growth @ 50 planes for 2015, that is roughly 450 jobs.

Net loss approx. 1500 positions

Now, with the "majors" hiring in 2015....

AA: 600
DL: 1200
UA: 770
NK: 260
JB: 300
F9: 100
SW: 300
AK: 120

3650 mainline pilots wanted in 2015
-1500 RJ pilots with positions eliminated.

That means after they take 1500 civ pilots right off the bat, the Majors will need to find another 2100 pilots from somewhere.

Considering the flows, the majority of leftover seats will come from MIL, so say 1700 MIL pilots have a good shot at landing a gig this year. 200 Corporate guys, and 200 more from RJ's.

How many pilots will gain ATP mins in 2015 to fill the bottom end of the RJ ranks? That is the $64,000 question.

What will happen in 2016? With RJ fleet realignments(AKA shrinkage) still occurring but to a lesser degree, there will another 3600-4000 pilots needed at mainlines, and I'm not sure there will be enough shrinkage in the RJ's to make up the shortfall, and I definitely don't think there will be enough pilots entering the pipeline with fresh ATP's to fill in the remaining seats..

We as a profession need to be looking 2-5 years down the road at what management will try to do to alleviate the problem of their own making (by providing sh@t wages that kept people from entering the career field). There ain't no post- Vietnam or Gulf War glut of military pilots to draw from anymore.... We have to have a plan, or else they will have one and it won't be pretty for us.

 

Outstanding post!

I believe the flying will come home to mainline faster than anyone expects. Delta will be the first mover. RA cannot live with the poor performance of the DCI. At the end of the day, it says Delta on the side of those planes.

 

I was just discussing this with a colleague the other day. He said; "hey, it's good for pilots!"

I said; "or, it's the economic and manpower crisis that finally provides the motivation to replace us with robots."

 

I agree.

Richard and Richard have been using the word "Fire Brand" a lot lately. Having control of our brand is a big issue these days. I think RA is the first airline CEO in forever that understands we are not a commodity. A quality product will earn a premium and having the 76-seat fleet flown at mainline is probably the single biggest quality control issue we have at Delta right now. It just isn't that easy to bring it all in house with all the dang contracts they have signed the last 10 years.

 

I don't know. RA is very smart, no doubt about that. And he seems to care about the company and its employees, at least as much or more than any CEO since the other RA took over and tried to ruin everything.

But we'll see if he puts his money where his scope is. I would be shocked if his lieutenants didn't at least make a serious attempt to increase the size of outsourced "RJs" one more time, just because that's all they know and all they ever learned in B school. I don't think they will try to put any 76ers directly at mainline. IMO they'll keep reinventing flows and interview programs and take at least one more bite at the apple trying to put even larger "RJs" at the regionals. IMO we won't see those planes directly at mainline until the shortage or whatever its called gets so severe there are massive, daily, operationally disrupting mass cancellations. We're not there yet, and until we are I don't think they will be able to transcend the current paradigm. We only did the 717's for less 50's because we got more 76ers without parking 70's. Thats light years away from bringing existing planes to mainline. IMO they aren't intellectually prepared to even think about doing that until absolutely operationally required and not a minute sooner.

We'll see.