Arguing for or against his premise doesn't change reality. The funny thing is, if -88A goes this junior today, how junior will 190A go in 6 months? 717A isn't exactly going senior either.

It's a great time to be a new pilot at Delta.

Now, if 330A would go more junior, I'd be happy.

Bro do you have any idea of the quals required to get to delta in the first place?

Anyone sitting in the captains seat at a legacy is qualified to be there, same with JB/SWA.

I'll let you decide on the ULCCs

Just base them in ATL and they'll be senior.

Let me correct that for you, "just place them in MSP and they'll be senior". Evidence is the 88 in the ATL Jr to 88 in MSP.

That's sad.

In my opinion, it's not just a function of junior MD88 Captain....it's being the junior MD88 Captain in NYC. Covering 3 airports, and the commute to NYC in general. I've done the commute, and it's not bad most of the time but thunderstorms within 500 miles or snowstorms can shut the place down faster than anywhere in the world. Although snow of any kind can shut ATL down faster, luckily that's not too common.

I know an Allegiant CA who had to wait il he got 500 hrs in the right seat before he could do the upgrade...

Lol. So low time, low experience left seaters in regional jets are OK but not in the MD-88? I'd argue that some of their flying is more challenging. I don't get your point. It's already happening, and has been for years, at the regional level.

PBS Is terrible for the junior pilot. You can plan on working most weekends and every holiday flying the worst trips in the bid package.

I've seen junior pilots awarded back to back to back 4 day trips over Christmas all the way through January 3. FAR 117 allows this with 30 hour layovers.

If you're on reserve plan on a huge block of reserve days over the holidays.

Senior pilots will bid in when they can avoid the worst of PBS. The junior Captain's progression forward will be a long road.

We gave Delta the PBS system with hardly a whimper from ALPA......That's why our last TA had a little extra pay for CQ and vacation but no credit towards the ALV. The company will exploit this as much as possible.

The 767-300 or ER category is a different beast because the category has both domestic and international flying and involves both the 757 and 767. The Intl goes much more senior. I'm guessing someone hired in 2007-2008 or maybe a 2010 could get weekends off in that category if they fly domestic.

As far as a pure intl category ala the 767-400, A330 and 777, it depends on reserve or lineholder. Reserve goes very senior on these airplanes and to hold weekends off on res would require at least 16 years. The good thing about 6 and 7 day trips is that if you do 2 a month, you automatically get a couple weekends off too. As a junior guy on the 767-400 I can get 2 weekends off a month if I bid a line and I'm a 2001 hire.

This isn't anything new, upgrade at Airways, I mean AA has been 1 year last time I looked (190 CA). Yes I would but my grandma on a DAL MD88 flight with a new CA who just got off ioe, it's a proven system.

It has been my observation that any Captain, no matter how many thousands of hours in type, is unsafe when sitting in an MD88! :eek: :D

(An old lady stuck her head into my MD88 cockpit during boarding and asked, "Is this thing safe?" to which I replied, "In about 10 minutes we're going to find out!")

With dispatchers who appear to be asleep at the wheel dispatching aircraft to closed airports without enough fuel to divert!

Truth!

For years I have been trying to point this out, about PBS.

It was, and continues to be, a HUGE manning concession, over our old capped 75 hour line of time bidding system.

I estimate it has cost us about 20% jobs lost, especially in the wide body categories, which, due to how few 777/747's we have, has a big snowball effect of stagnation all the way down the list.

Most guys I fly with on the 777 are picking up to 90-100 hours if they can. Just going from 75 hours to 90 is a 20% increase in flying, per person.

Now multiply that by 2000 senior wide body pilots.

Now shrink the wide body fleet by 16 747's.

Now park some 757's.

Yeah, that's why you're stuck on the MD88 flying 90 hours a month, and that's why commuting to NYC to cover 3 airports is the junior position.

PBS had the added effect of allowing all the crap to settle to the bottom. Under Line of Time bidding, crew scheds built the lines, they would spread the crap around to make 75 hour lines. You might only have one or two POS trips on a line, but then some other good trips to balance out your month. Even the number 1 bidder might not be able to find a line completely free of that one POS trip, or a line that has every weekend off.

But under PBS, ALL the CRAP ends up on the bottom guy's line, because the top 50% of the bidders will pick all the good trips, on all the good days, leaving all the crap to the junior guys, flying every weekend and holiday. That's also why many junior line holders would rather bid reserve than fly a whole month of garbage.

30 years ago you had to be about 50% of the way up the seniority list to hold the most junior captain job, which at that time was the DC9 in ORD. Back then we had a lot more choices for bases and places to live, (DFW, IAH, MSY, BOS, ORD, MIA) so you didn't have to commute to ATL or NYC, you could live where you wanted to, and not worry about commuting. You sat junior reserve at home, not at a crash pad, which made every Captain bid go much more senior, especially in the smaller bases like BOS and MIA.

When I got my first Capt. bid (plug MD88 CVG) with 'only' 6 years at Delta, many people were shocked that there were now 6yr Captains, much like today's 14 month Captain awards 'shock'.

But, NOBODY I met in the training dept., LCA's or anywhere else said we 'unsafe', even though few of us had any time on the Mad Dog as F/O's. We figured it out...and then we got displaced off it a year later, as Delta sold off all their DC9's and those guys came over and pushed off of the MD88, back to F/O.

Fun while it lasted, but I didn't miss commuting to CVG to be the plug 88 Captain anymore!

With a ex NWA Chief Pilot, their VP of Flight Ops, and their Safety Officer in the cockpit.

In the Air Force we called a crew like that, "Critical Mass" and there was usually an accident report that followed...:D

Timbo,

I agree 100% on the efficiency of PBS but as far as hosing the junior guys I think you are simplifying quite a bit. It probably varies by fleet but on the 737 in LAX I see many senior guys bidding red-eyes and flying over the weekends.

Yes most of the great non-redeye Tuesday- Thursday 3-days go senior (as they should) but after that it is all spread around. When we first started with PBS I was in the bottom half of the LAX 767 B category and instantly started getting better schedules.

Like I said it probably depends on your base and fleet but other than the obvious great trips everything gets spread around quite a bit.

I think you have said it before - One mans trash is another mans great trip.



Scoop :)

More than anything else, complacency kills. Know who's rarely complacent? Very new, very junior captains.

Yeah, I've seen some guys bidding some pretty 'crazy' stuff, but when I ask them why, they've got a vacation coming or their wife is on the trip, or some such, but go look at the top 767ER or 777 or A330 awards, you'll see all the good stuff is gone after about the first 20% of bidders, weekends off, etc. A good friend of mine just bid down from NYC767A to NYC737A because he was tired of flying all the crap, all the time, and he was at 50% on the 767 Capt list.

A few guys I know bid exclusively to have a huge block of time off over holidays, not to be home, but to be available for a big fat greenie. One 27 year F/O I know was really po'd about FAR117 because now he can 'only' fly 100 hours in 28 days, no more 120 hours in 30 days, and a lot of that extra 20 hours was his greenslip trips, costing him 40 hours pay.

LAX is a different deal altogether when it comes to bidding, because of it's fleet mix, trip builds, and physical location,(one of the corners) like BOS was back in the day. There should be some good movement out there finally with all the new 777 positions. Notice that none of the 777 guys who left DTW were backfilled? What does that tell you about the 777 category in DTW? Yeah, get ready, it's coming (or I should say, going).

Holy Mother of God, a thousand times yes!!!

It may be cool enough outside for the ramp to not put on the air, and it may be ok in the cabin before you start boarding- but if there is even a little humidity, those 150 or so self-loading heaters coming on make it quickly unbearable!! Please, please, please have mercy of those of us in polyester!!

Your airline has/had 2 yr upgrades. How's that any different?

I wonder how much the unionoids would have been blaming TA2015 for this advancecment had it gone through... things to ponder!

It's almost three years now but we also have a common fleet so any new captains these days have been in the plane a few years.

I think his concerns are kind of baseless but they did things differently in the air force when changing types according to a post he made. Just a frame of reference thing I imagine. I don't know the guy personally but I think he's in the training department and our training program is a little weak in the 121 world (not a reflection of our great instructors) and there is no doubt we are not exactly hiring the best of the best these days so I'm sure he sees some stuff everyday that could make him a bit nervous.

I flew MD80s for years and I'm no superpilot. What is with all of the talk of what a handful it is? I don't see much difference between that and a CRJ200... which has had low experience upgrades for years and years.

Factor in all the proper pieces in place at Delta from MX to Dispatch to rampers and it's a walk in the park compared to Allegiant who has dozens of new hire captains in the MD80 and all the support of your average Part 135 outfit and an abysmal MX record. Oh and flights to small runways. In fact I would love to see a Delta pilot fly into Ogden, Provo or Roanoke with four MELs and snow like we do every year. Yet the hiring department at Delta has no time for us.

I don't believe that they don't have time for you, it's just that they have others to choose from.
If anything it's that the ALG Corp is an abomination to the industry and they hope for it to die under its own weight of missteps just short of killing anyone. Sort of like skybus.

Seems to me those others they have to choose from were the reason this thread started. Hard to argue someone that is a Captain from Allegiant isn't ready to fly as Captain at Delta.

For sure the Allegiant peeps have much more IROP experience.

Haha! Too true.

Drop the voice an octave on the PA and have the stones to face the passengers in the galley when you tell them their vacation is ruined and you've got the basics. Been there done that.

We are all professionals in our own right to have made it to this point. I agree that if Delta hired you then you have what it takes. If not then the system should work itself out. I just can't make sense of the refusal to hire qualified Captains at airlines with your same aircraft and never will. Delta is a great company regardless and I wish you all the best. Apologies for the rant.

Your post history seems to hint a lot at being new to the 121 world. No, there wouldn't be a class action lawsuit. He's a fully qualified ATP-rated pilot, Md88 typed, and with thousands of hours of flight time. I still find it ironic coming from you in a training department known to basically check boxes. Besides, Delta hiring standards are the toughest in the industry, as is their training.

Could you post the list(s)? Top to bottom, or bottom to top, either way would work.

You're not just unsafe, you are dangerous! :D

If I could put a giant sign in every ACS breakroom: "REMEMBER, IT MIGHT BE NICE OUTSIDE, BUT IT'S ALWAYS 20 degrees WARMER IN THE CABIN."

Labbats,
Hope you can get on as soon as possible. IMHO the best thing Delta has done since BK days is to put a laser focus on completion and reliability and will go to great lengths to minimize delays and not cancel a single mainline flight when possible.

I agree that some travelers expectations are a little high..... One morning after a 1.5 hour delay for a flight to MIA, I had three different pax say they were going to miss their cruise ship boarding window that they had planned to walk off the plane and go straight to on an extremely cold winter's Saturday morning. No room for error. I felt bad and our company had let them down.... but there was nothing I could do, and I hate that feeling.

The other day at the airport I saw a late 50's couple, woman crying, both on cell phones with their ALG receipt from their printer in their hand frantically trying to call someone at ALG due to a recently canxed flight. I couldn't even make out the reason they were both upset, but it didn't really matter. They asked me as I walked by (in different company uniform) if I knew of any way to help get a hold of ALG. I walked them over to the airport info guy who was at his desk about 25' away and I said do you have any special number or way to talk to someone? Apparently, the ALG ticket desk had shut down and vacated for the day and the couple felt abandoned. He looked at all of us and said, "no, and daily I have crying disappointed passengers here that ALG has left stranded".
Of course he was probably exaggerating to make the people feel better, and I had to leave to catch my JS, so I have no idea what happened in the end, but that kind of unreliability and reputation will catch up to a travel company eventually if it is widespread enough.

Fixed it for ya.

"Back in the day", when Delta started up Delta Express (anyone remember that?) and the pilots were on a lower pay scale, there were second officers who had NEVER flown either captain, or copilot on a Delta jet who up-graded directly to captain on the express operation.

Many wise people predicted dired consequences, but everyone did just fine. Anyone Delta hires has the experience and ability to be trained to fly captain day one.

Never underestimate pilots' survival instincts....:D

It was very wise what Dal did with express. That was the most standardized operation in the airline. In fact JG was a check airman at express. And, another guy in the news this week, was the fleet Capt, CF. You guys know me by now, and I call a spade a spade. I like both of those guys. They are genuine, good, sharp, nice guys, they just took a different route than the rest of us. They have a role to play.

Carry express forward. The airline is standardized, maybe excessively. Standardization is good. Try to fly the same flight over and over every flight and you get pretty darn good at doing your job.

All the new-hire captains in NYC were 88 FOs in NYC. I'm pretty sure they got this.

It's nice to see delta pilots from both seats throughout the seniority list exuding confidence for the new 88 captains.

That's unity and the rest of us should take note.

Actually, I had 4700 hours or so when I got hired at Delta. 3K was airline flying, the rest was "other" flying. I also only had a 2.02 GPA. Of course, that was back in 2001.

I was identical in flying times for a 2007 hire. 2000 of that airline flying was CRJ captain. 2.7 GPA, though. :D