I do not hope for anything. I want this mess to get over, so we can go back to talking about hiring and buying jets. I do not wish any of my fellow aviators any ill will.

Taking financial information, is just that. It has nothing to do with a pilot. It is about the health of said company.

If you had the choice, which one of the two would you go back too?

Duplicate post......:o

Ferd! You've been so quiet lately I thought you retired early!!!! ;) :D

Depends. If we go all the way up to me XJ will not be available. With only 16 slots, those will go in the first round.
CPS is not bad. I like the jet, and would not mind going there. I have done that flying before and enjoyed it. Most that do not know about it are scared of the "RJ" thing. But if you work a ton it pays OK. I much prefer my life of never working over that though.

Why, are you wondering how many people would flow to XJ?

Well, if your 300 guess is accurate then Compass could take on all the flowbacks. But I think he is probably wondering if he would get bumped down at all. If I couldn't get a CPZ left seat, then a Mesaba left seat would be my next choice.

I agree. We may get lucky enough that they may decided to hold off. These are hoped to be short term capacity cuts. They might decided to just SIL the heck out of the winter months. 2010 looks a lot rosier than this year.
Like I stated, they will more than likely only furlough what they can keep on the street for a year or two.

FWIW, they are still going with the party lines of no furloughs yet. We will see if that changes later this week.

Is the guess of 300 from Delta South only, or from the entire Delta?

That is probably part of the furlough or don't furlough question. If they reguage stuff, you could see Delta N jets reguaged with Delta S jets and Delta S jets reguaged with Delta N jets. Since these cuts are coming in September, it will be before SOC and could result in furloughs that are out of seniority order because of the cross fleeting that will occur from reguaging. It's all just a big mess.

Could be from both sides. But NWA is a little understaffed. It is a guess. What is being cut has not been announced yet. That is the key

He didn't end the post with "Hooray, here's hoping for a total demise of UAL, AMR, LCC!" He merely pointed out the obvious. Those airlines have the biggest debt obligations that are due and UAL and LCC have the weakest cash balances right now. No one hopes anything. We all have friends that are hurting right now and don't wish anyone to lose their livelihood. Read his post again and remove your emotions from your response.

One thing no one has broached is that CVG is being cut another 25%. Since there's only 40 mainline flights out of the few hundred it is illogical that mainline would see most of this. I suspect that unless they grow JFK and ATL with a lot of RJ service, someone is going to see some major cuts come their way. It was alluded to in the JP Morgan meeting that they feel they cannot sell any of the wholly owned carriers in this market. The only ones they can cut without affecting contracts are Comair, Mesaba and Compass. It will be interesting.

I just read the post again and it is not emotion in my response as I didn't start the silly name calling. By the way I don't work for either of those companies so there is no emotion associated with his post in that regards. By the way is there some reason you are telling me what to do in regards to any emotion I might have? Did someone leave you in charge and I missed that memo? Best of luck.

"They are, we will recover a lot quicker than the others. If this continues I see UAUA, AMR, or LLC in 11 or 7 by this fall."

That was his quote. Where do you read that he is looking to profit off those carriers demise?

As to the rest, you need to relax. Go get some sun and unspool yourself.

Thanks I couldn't find it myself. Hey go to work and see if you can tell people what to do don't do it here. Thanks for your thoughts .

Well Comair is going to JFK, and Measa to CVG. So what do you read by this.

:DNawwwwwww, just tied up with elderly parents for a bit.

Kinda reminds me of the great exchange between Richard Boone and John Wayne in "Big Jake"

Boone - Who are you?
Wayne - Jake McKandles
Boone - I thought you was dead
Wayne - Not hardly!

Way too much to get caught up with on here, glad to see all the same players..........missed my old friends.

Ferd

Welcome Back Ferd!!!! :D :D

CPZ and XJ pilots - I don't think I could be trained to fly an RJ again. I flare waaay too high now.

Besides, been there, done that... if I wanted to stay I'd rather do it without the loss of ten years of longevity, an $70,000 pay cut and being able to bid two days and stand ups.

While I'd really like to see one list with you guys, it is about unity, not the flow down. I'd probably go find some corporate gig or maybe become a missionary pilot. No kidding, looks like fun to fly tail wheel airplanes around the middle of nowhere.

What?????????? Oh wait, mis read it;)

Careful now... missionaries have daughters.

Oh boy buddy. BTW would your wife sign up for that? I mean she doesn't even want you go bid MSP!

I guess our newly negotiated no-furlough clause isn't about to stop them - say it's not so.

Also if DAL wants to furlough CPS is only required to train 20 month which means it could take 18 months to flush their list. DAL can still put 500-1000 on the street in very short order, and it will take (those that will not be flushed through) a long long time before they will be working for Compass.

Correct.

That CPZ flow is the detail that makes all of this up to debate. DAL knows the limitations of this flow and the requirements of it. Flush the list, fine save money on the front end, but as they recall DAL will pay for the PCS training in the back end. That is unless we give up the flow for more pay on lets say the 777. Then we could let the company furlough a lot easier and without all of those nasty costs.
Even if they decided to furlough, I do not see them getting rid of may of these "76 seat" jets. We will grieve it and when it is settled we will get a dinner at Arby's or something like that. ;)

I'm still wondering how some of you guys think DAL will run with 500 to 1000 less pilots. BP5 was delayed until AFTER summer 09 because if it was implemented any earlier the NWA side would have been SEVERELY short staffed.

With 777s & MD90s coming I don't see how we could furlough for longer then 2 years. They certainly could NOT justify furloughing 500 to 1000 for only 2 years, plus the airline would be crippled with that many out for any duration.

Thats my hope, I can't afford to be furloughed because I'm trying to buy some houses to flip, I've been watching these HGTV shows, most from 2006 but its still relevant, and I'm motivated. ;)

Well - the only way Delta could operate with 500 to 1000 less pilots is to park airplanes (as I understand the staffing right now). But since Delta is talking about cutting capacity, they could easily park airplane - poof, there goes the need for that 500-1000 pilots (if they cut enough).

Another option is to cut mainline service and replace it with RJs. That would impact mainline staffing with but would seem like less of a capacity cut.

One thing I've learned in this business is that airlines can shrink to unimaginably small sizes if business is bad enough: one of my former cargo airlines had 120 pilots when I was started there in 2000. Now it has 8.

Well I agree things could get bad enough to furlough that many, but my point was based on current plans & projections. I think the economy would have to get MUCH worse in order for DAL to park that many airplanes. Especially with a projected profit for 2009 & beyond.

You are correct, but it depends on what is cut and where the frequency is cut. I said it six months ago that if we announced another pull back we would probably see furloughs. Well, I expected to see a bigger pull back a few months ago. We really have waited too long. That said, they can run the numbers based on our forecast and come up with a metric that states we can furlough a few hundred for 18 to 24 months, they may do it. The bet would be that with the training restrictions at CPS many would not take it and move on. It is a gamble they may not want to take.
The numbers have not been run yet. We will see what Ken says next week.

Alot of people forget that we have already been downsized. Our industry got a head start on this recession because of the effects of 911. We have already made deep cuts. The growth since then was with the 50 and 70 seaters, that's were the fat is IMHO. BP5 was going to put us short before this announcement and may officially be a wash now. Also the company has no idea who will retire or go out on sick leave and when. They are having trouble pinpointing staffing because of the unexpected. Time will tell how this unfolds.

They havent started offering pilot early outs again or lowered our maxes yet when they do then that would show they are concerned about pilot staffing. The bid packages and increased flying per pilot is going up. Every month that goes by means our pilot group gets smaller by either retirements, med out, LTD, or let go. There are alot of factors in the staffing model and from what they are saying (lips moving, watch their feet ;) ) pilot staffing isn't an issue as of now. We'll see

Or they could option to reduce RJS and frequency while moving the same number of seats with larger planes ( paid for dc9s md88s) :)

Who knows?

I had recently heard that 18 month furloughs could be cost effective. I also heard that we are close to that right now meaning that we are right around a 15 month furlough therefore not making it cost effective yet. I don't know how this new pullback will effect those #'s, but if they need the same staffing NEXT summer that they need THIS summer then furloughs aren't an option. Now I suppose they could shift flying to DCIs next summer which may allow furloughs, but I'm guessing we are still on the fence every week. Talk about living on the edge. ;)

Domestic is saving this airline right now. When international has cuts it effects us more due to crew augmentation.
Like I said wait and see what the decided. They are working the numbers now. I am sure details will be out later this week or early next. ;)
That said, the forecast for later next year makes it difficult to furlough for long term. Now if we see an adjustment in that number there could be furloughs.
Like I said, they are still stating no furloughs, but most of flight ops did not know about this.

Peter Schiff again speaks poorly on our economy.

If you don't know who he is, he was one of the doomsayers back in the early 00s who said we were going to go bust.

LiveLeak.com - Peter Schiff on BNN Canada

-Fatty

We get it Fatty. You're a pessimist. We get it. :rolleyes:

I just want people to be prepared !

It is good to be prepared.

You need to stop reading Schiff and start reading Mish......A whole different perspective.

NO! I want to live in DENIAL! I'm just kidding. ;) Thanks for the input. :D

I agree. I started ramping up my plans a few months ago. ;)

They can't put anyone out on the street until they get the 88 beefed up. That won't be done until about July or so, and we probably need all of those bodies through the end of the summer. (I Just got done with 2 three day rotations off reserve that nearly put me over 30 in 7) Then you're talking about taking the quite a few of the pilots you just trained for that airplane, putting them on the street, and training a whole new batch to take their place. That would add quite a bit of cost as well - although I understand the training dept has had revolving doors before. That being said, that puts a furlough fairly deep in the economic cycle (In September the recession would be 22 months old,) and likely (hopefully!) closer to end than the beginning. Does it make sense to cut when you may have to bring those pilots back in less than 2 years?

And then, of course, there is the 76 seat issue. Does anybody know how many are actually on property, or on their way? I guess the deal says (on paper) if any of us get furloughed, they get knocked down to 126 (?) of those airplanes immediately. And for whatever reason, management still seem to have a woody for those things.

We also haven't had any voluntary leaves/furloughs/early outs etc. offered to the pilot group - so hopefully they'll go there before kicking us to the curb.

Then there are the arguments of no furlough clauses, under staffing in the north, more airframes on the way, company making money, summer schedules vs. all the negatives in the world and industry right now.

Its gonna be a close call, to be sure. Lots of variables, and Airline management is world renowned for stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. We can only hope that this group is different. As ACL said, all will become clear in a few days. I'm in the bottom 50, so I'll be one of the first to find out...

Hoping for the best, already planned for the worst.