Delta hiring 2012?
 

The rumor is flow throughs starting class Jan 2012:

1. Heard from a guy in Network that was in a meeting 2 weeks ago that they may flow around 100 next year.

2. Heard from pilot friend at Compass that management was asked to be prepared to begin flowing in February.

3. Heard that the guy who owns the Delta Dinner Restaurant in Atlanta was telling a women in the chief pilot office that he should prepare to host dinners starting in Jan for the forseeable future.

Anyone else heard this rumor?

I'm skeptical.

Economy is still fairly unstable and weak, business travel is softening, we are cutting back quite a bit over the Atlantic in the fall, and oil is forecast to go up and from what I can tell, we are staffed ok in most categories.

Maybe a few flows, but between the mil leave guys that are bound to return soon and the flows, I can't see a whole lot if any hiring off the street.

Hope I'm wrong though.

Delta Dinner Restaurant? Now that's a source.

The rumor every year is that we will hire next year. ACL and others watch the marketing announcements. Watch this space for news on Delta's summer flying plans. Anything more than a 2 to 4% uptick in flying should drive hiring. At the moment we are well, perhaps a little fat staffed in most categories.

In the mean time, I'll have a Delta Dinner Special!

I know the restaurant they are talking about. Good Place.

With the pull down, and increased training from this last AE, as well as the cleanup after the retirees, I also agree that we may see a few recalls this fall, maybe but the earliest that the school house could support training em masse would be early 2012, and then only on the 88 amd 73N, as the 320 sims will be moving to ATL.

I personally think that baring a financial meltdown, we will need to hire. Given the posturing in DC, anything is possible.

What about the constant talk about how bad intl in general and europe in particular is doing? The drawdown numbers keep getting larger every week it seems. Even if 150ish end up taking the early out incentive, will the net result still be the need to hire? And furloughs can come back to anything they can hold, regardless of where we are constrained by the training pipeline, and they come back first (if they take it) so attempting 100 flows could result in some significant unintended consequences. Of course we would still do it if we really needed the people, but it just seems like we will wait until the absolute last minute that we can no longer cover the operation with unlimited green slips (and we're not there yet anyway) before hiring even a single class.

I maybe wrong but I dont think Delta can train 700-800 in a year to replace retirements. Doesnt Delta have to consider hiring pilots early?

When I was hired, Delta was running 700-800 a year through the schoolhouse. It has and can be done.

More senior pilots took early outs than anticipated, so there's talk of possible flow-throughs and even off the street hiring this Fall, definitely by Spring. Once Delta hiring starts, it will not stop for about 20 years. Anticipating 8,000 retiring in the next 15 years.

Bringing this thread back from the dead...any news/opinions since the early out numbers have been posted and the slot swap has gone through?

That's a ton of retirements, you would think hiring should start soon.

Any idea of the number of pilots that are able to flow up?