Delta's Anderson gives "bleak assessment"
 

I did not want to poison the latest & greatest thread. But, it does not look good.

Delta CEO gives bleak assessment of demand

Delta Air Lines chief gives bleak assessment of air travel demand

• Harry R. Weber, AP Airlines Writer
• Thursday February 12, 2009, 6:50 pm EST

ATLANTA (AP) -- The chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines Inc. gave a bleak assessment Thursday of demand for air travel amid the enormous financial strain that many Americans have been under in recent months.
In a recorded message to employees, CEO Richard Anderson did not specifically say the world's biggest carrier plans to cut more jobs or capacity than previously announced, though he did suggest the erosion in demand that the airline has seen has been very difficult.
"Passengers, our customers, are not buying tickets at rates they were buying tickets a year ago," Anderson said. "Obviously, we wish we didn't have to decrease our capacity, but we cannot fly our airplanes around at low load factors."
Atlanta-based Delta has previously said it expected about 2,000 employees to accept the company's latest round of severance offers that were made due to its plans to reduce systemwide capacity in 2009 by 6 percent to 8 percent. The window for employees to accept the severance offers closed at midnight Wednesday.
Anderson did not say in his message late Thursday how many employees accepted the offers or how many jobs the company would ultimately cut.
He did say that Delta would work through the numbers and look at who has chosen to take the packages and align that with the airline's needs.
Anderson said Delta needs to right-size the airline based on customer demand.
"The economy is very difficult," Anderson said. "It seems every day we read about companies announcing layoffs by the thousands."
He said customers are tightening their belts, not spending as much on vacations. As a result, Anderson said Delta will need to react quickly.
"A strong, durable airline is truly the only job security for all of us," Anderson said.
The voluntary severance payout offers were made to a majority of the 75,000 employees at Delta and Northwest's mainline operations.
The program is similar to one earlier in 2008 that Delta used to trim about 4,000 jobs. Northwest Airlines previously trimmed jobs of its own before being acquired by Delta on Oct. 29.
Delta and Northwest's mainline operations include 75,000 employees. The entire company, including regional subsidiaries Comair, Mesaba and Compass, has about 85,000 employees. The 12,000 pilots of Delta and Northwest, as well as certain management and administrative employees, are not eligible for the voluntary severance programs.

Didn't I just read something about a no-furlough agreement?

Yep, we knew the flights were not full. The full effect of the announced capacity cuts has not taken effect yet. Sept bookings are dismal as well.

That is worth less than the paper its written on but our MEC gave away scope for it. A "good deal" is when both parties think they got the best of the other, a "bad deal" is when we give away scope for a pouch of magic beans. Hopefully when I get furloughed I can plant those beans and climb the bean stock to a place where our union actually looks out for the pilots rather than eat big steaks, drink expensive wines and sell us down the river.

I agree, and I also think that the fact that many people did not take early out will result in front line employees getting the axe.
I think that this message was directed at those people that could take the early outs and did not.

If there is a pull back the most recent numbers showed another one this fall, if there is one needed.

That is my understanding as well. The already announced cuts include another pulldown in the fall if it is needed, which it looks like it probably will be. So, we should be OK unless the bookings are significantly worse than what they thought they would be. That will probably be the case, but I think this announcement was to prime the pump to lay off employees who didn't take the early out.

By God he has done it now. It took four months but RA has finally made the statement I knew was coming in a manner of time. "Right Size the Airline".

Boy I am truly "Living the Dream and Walking through the nightmare" LMAO.

;)

Do not get me wrong, we could furlough. In this economy I would be more surprised if we didn't, but it is not something that hey are planning yet.

Good thing the Delta mainline pilots gave Dick the scope relief he wanted so he can buy more 70 seaters. When he starts shutting down narrow bodies, those pax are going to have to be flown on something.

Nice work to the DALPA leadership for transferring even more mainline jobs to the commuters.

But oh. No worries. They have furlough protection.

I mean seriously, those pilots have had the advantage of the age 60 rule all of there careers, how is this fair to a pilot who just got hired at DL or NW??? For that matter, Fed Ex, UPS, or any other big time airline?