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?

If Anderson wants to "right-size" Delta, maybe he can spin-off Northwest? :D

I think the discussion is about the front line employees and not counting the pilots. They excluded the pilots from the early outs thus far which points to them not wanting to thin the pilot group, yet. There are many factors coming up that will increase the need for pilots so time will tell how the cards fall. We'll see

Awesome.

I am really feeling good now because I have it on paper that I'll never be furloughed, I have a union looking out for me despite being junior, I have protection from having to fly those crappy little 76 seat jets that are beneath Moak's big boy fleet, and we all are about to get an economic stimulus that will create (or save) 4 million jobs and that should pass Saturday before anyone voting for it reads it.

Looks like I picked the right week to start sniffing glue.

I'll admit, I have little confidence in keeping my job in the fall BUT YOU KNOW WHAT... I love this job. I'll enjoy it until it ends, if it ends.

I don't get it guys. The jets I'm flying are full. Granted, its the 73NG but we're doing coast-to-coast stuff and they are oversold for the most part. Flew one leg yesterday from SLC to SFO that was 75% or so. The rest over the last two weeks have been oversold. Is it because of the capacity reductions? If not, why can't DAL turn full flights into $$$?

It's a numbers game
 

I've flown out and back to Mexico with 60 pax outbound, and 20 pax inbound (with about a handful non-rev), on 738 as well. Gate agents I've talked to they said it's been very erratic, at best, but it's a dropoff from previous years for sure.

Companies have ways to "manipulate" the numbers as they see fit to soften the blow, and I see this announcement as nothing but a precursor to another round of cuts, I just hope they'll honor our new "no-furlough" clause this time... <wink, wink>

What was the famous, yet bad, quote about the number for the truck driving school.....

"truckmasters I think it was, we might need that"

My personal opinion is that we will see significant furloughs during the next few years. It matters not what the company says at the moment, as it has always been behind the power curve economically. We were still hiring when the recessionary writing was on the wall in early 2001. In March of that year, Fred Reid gave a lounge (ATL) briefing with a notable look of fear on his face, discussing the airline forecast. I will remember the look on his face that day for the rest of my career. We were still hiring +/- 60 pilots a month and continued to do so until July, when the 16-July class was told they would be the last. A few months later, the 9-11 TERRORIST attacks compounded the problem and, as everyone knows, the furlough floodgates opened.

I flew with a lot of guys who did not think they would be furloughed…that it wouldn’t get to them. Sadly, it did. Quarter after quarter, both company and ALPA economists predicted an end was in sight. I saw a lot of graphs, produced by both sides, projecting revenues rebounding within 2-4 quarters….then another 2-4 quarters…then another 2-4 quarters…the ‘turnaround’ became a moving target. Meanwhile we continued to borrow money while losing millions/day (thanks Michelle B.). The problem: there was nothing on the horizon to stop the blood-letting; nothing significant to begin generating profits. Low cost competition was fierce, the business travelers were no longer paying the high ticket prices and the airline lost the ability to control prices. The seats were filling up but the prices weren’t supporting the operation. Both the company and union were asking themselves if this was merely cyclical or something more permanent. I remember the MEC Chair not wanting to admit the latter knowing it would mean the company would come asking for permanent concessions. The Walmart mentality was here to stay, however, and so was the debt; bankruptcy was inevitable.

Many would say that this time is different…I agree. It’s worse. This country continues to shed jobs at historic rates; this will continue and it will have a domino effect. To think it won’t eventually have a significant and long term effect on an industry reliant upon business and pleasure travel – discretionary spending – is simply unrealistic.

What concerns me the most is this country’s belief that borrowing nearly 1 trillion dollars (not including interest and what’s already owed) to ‘stimulate’ the economy with pork will turn things around. Once again, there is nothing on the horizon to turn things around. And this time there aren’t many credit lines left to be tapped to falsely prop up the economy as in recent years. It’s the debt – the national debt, the company debt and personal debt-and debt maturation/obligation. This country doesn’t produce anything anymore and we are not energy independant!!! I still don’t understand why an airline pilot would support the anti-drilling party. The lifeblood of our industry is gas…talk about voting your job (away)!

I wonder how long it will be before our new environmental czarstress – socialist and supporter of global governance (or American submission) – Carol Browner, proposes something like this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4536352/Flights-could-be-rationed-says-environment-tsar-Lord-Turner.html
Think it can’t happen? Conditions of our expected bailout (you know, the bailout everyone is basing this get-too-big-to-fail-merger on) may just entail some of this global warming/climate change science…why should our gas-guzzling industry be excluded from the all the hope and change? It may not come to this because the economy will do the rationing naturally.

More on Ms. Browner: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/12/obama-climate-czar-has-socialist-ties/

Delta has tapped a $1 Billion credit line to administer this merger, it seems. That is: 1,000,000,000 (doesn’t sound like much when our government throws around billions and trillions of our money with such reckless abandonment). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123059871448041253.html
But we Americans no longer care about a few hundred “illions” with an “M” anymore, do we? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEfICUoWKBw

Like this country and our company’s pre-bankruptcy days, we are printing/‘raising’ cash – NOT generating it (revenue). This won’t end well for us…especially when most of the world hates us.

I wonder what the pre-merger DAL pilots will think when we all end up with pay rates equivalent to pre-merger NWA? I wonder if they will get to keep their pensions? If not, the NWA guys probably won’t be in a hurry to retire as projected…but at least all the DC-9’s will be repainted! With jobless claims increasing, methinks you'd have to be nuts to voluntarily leave a job.

"XXXXXXX"


How cute.

Truckmasters would be great, except this time they wont be hiring.

We have furloughed pilots being told they cannot get WIA funds for truck-drivers school because there are so few jobs in that sector at this time.

Its all good

Nice 1st post PlaneWhisperer........:rolleyes:

I'm not buying the Doom & Gloom. My world looks much better through rose colored glasses.:cool:

Hi.

Tell the prospective truck drivers to move to GRB (home of Schneider National). There are lots of ads for truck drivers.

I was (will be?) considering it.

cliff
GRB

Unfortunately all my experience is in 6 wheel vehicles.

Right off of Schneiders website:

Inexperienced Drivers
Never Driven a Truck Before?

Schneider National is currently hiring experienced drivers to fill open driving roles. Please continue to check back for future opportunities, and thank you for your interest in Schneider National.

Sorry for the hijack

Its all good!