Well since I can't read the future I don't know what the 4Q 10Q will report. It will however be out in a few days and we will know if they retired the 9 more planned nines. I hope they did not. It would be a good thing. The fact remains however that the aircraft are approaching 40 years old. They are not going to be around long term period. Why is that so hard to accept. In the last 5 years Delta retired two fleets of more modern aircraft in the same size range. When I posted that NWA would be down to 62 nines several of you came on here and stated that they would not go below 90 airframes this year. Well we know they got to 67 so I would say my numbers were just a bit more accurate! Even if we end up at the end of the year with 67 airframes 1/3 of the fleet was retired in 12 months.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,nevermind. It will get out soon enough. Let's keep our heads boys. :(

Here is a old NWA press release on the Nines. Note the 104,000 requirement. Delta does not plan to perform this maintenance. NWA estimated the aircraft would 100,000 cycles in 2010.

LONDON - A detailed structural safety analysis was conducted before Northwest Airlines [NWAC] decided to keep flying its DC-9 fleet another 15 years. The carrier operates a fleet of 173 DC-9s.

Northwest plans to fly these airplanes to the year 2010. Upon retirement, the planes will have accumulated 40 years of service.

Speaking at an aging airliner conference here, Brad Mueller, Northwest's manager of fleet planning, said the DC-9 was a perfect fit for routes it was flying. The question was whether the airplane's structure could be flown to 100,000 flight cycles or more.

"Douglas had tested the airplane to more than 200,000 cycles," Mueller explained. At the time Northwest decided to invest about $10 million per plane for hushkits, new interiors, and other upgrades, Mueller said Northwest's DC-9's had logged about 65,000-70,000 cycles.

The manufacturer's extended fatigue testing verified the durability of the design. "This was the single biggest concern," Mueller said. "If the study had not satisfied the question (of structural safety), we wouldn't have done it."

Northwest plans to fly its DC-9's to about 100,000 cycles, at which point they will be retired. "Major modifications are needed at 104,000 cycles," Mueller explained.

What does that mean?:confused:

Back to the scope issue. EVERYONE should be paying attention to whats going on with UAL now and Aer Lingus. SCOPE IS A HUGE ISSUE. UAL has plans for 1000 pilot furloughs and has now signed a deal to use a subsidiary of Aer Lingus which will even outsource jobs from lingus pilots. This is a direct attack on pilots and our careers. It must be stopped and the line must be drawn.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Statement from Captain Steve Wallach,
Chairman, United Master Executive Council Air Line Pilots Association
Regarding United’s ‘Innovative’ Partnership With Aer Lingus January 22, 2009

The day after reporting one of its worst quarterly financial results in history and after furloughing an additional 254 pilots (bringing the total to 606 pilots), United Airlines announced today that it has entered into what it calls an “innovative” partnership with Aer Lingus.

Aer Lingus has advised the Irish press that this joint venture will operate an Aer Lingus aircraft with neither United nor Aer Lingus employees, under a separate operating certificate and under newly established wages and working conditions. Obviously, this partnership will be accomplished at the expense of United’s and Aer Lingus’ own pilots and other employees. This development, where United attempts to establish an airline operation without the use of United aircraft or employees, is nothing less than the outsourcing of jobs to an international company, and clearly demonstrates that this management continues to make business decisions without regard to its pilots and other employees.

"The United pilots are exploring every option to put an end to the company’s blatant disregard and lack of loyalty to the United Airlines brand.”

Doesn't the United MEC have a seat on the board?

You are correct, Scope is the issue. I believe we have a pretty good section for international code share and the company hands are tied a bit. They are at or near the limit as we speak. The whole point of my posts on the nines is that we should accept that they are going away and work on a method to recapture the flying. I have posted this several times.

You're right, we need to fight and fight hard to ensure whats happening at UAL and Midwest NEVER happens at Delta.

We don't have to recapture DC9, and 76 seat plus flying - it's already ours - we have to prevent it being eroded further. THE best ways to accomplish that is actually have DAL mainline pilots flying 76 seaters.

It will be far easier to negotiate it away if we never have DAL pilots flying those acft, than if it means booting DAL pilots cockpits to ease Scope.

The path of least resistance to that end is to integrate Compass onto the end of our list.

Delta was a big part of the Midwest debacle......DAL could have merged Midwest in at the same time as NWA.....they chose not too.I didn't see more than 5 DAL pilots " fighting" for my lost job at Midwest due to the RAH subcontracting.