johnso29

I think it depends on where. Some places yes, other places no. For instance, SAN yes. FAR or GFK no.

DAL73n

Actually, DAL would love to pull out of a number of those unprofitable markets currently served by those 50 seaters that they want to get rid of. So there is no reason that DAL can't continue to show capacity discipline with DCI and the improvement in work rules allows DAL to keep main line hours static (or even slight growth) and staff the new A/C with Displacements from higher paying A/C (every A/C at DAL is higher paying than the 717).

whaledriver1

Its not the sim that is a problem... its the TOE. Try 3 months of sitting until they figure out how to schedule an instructor. Half of my 7ER class waited almost 3 months for TOE.

johnso29

I went through 7er training in Jan/Feb. I had 2 days off in between IOE & TOE.

gloopy

They are very comparable. If SWA is apples, then DL is apples, oranges and bananas. But DL still has apples, and lots of them. We can compare those to eachother quite fairly.

They fly 98% <140 seaters for rates similar to our 747/777 rates and W-2's that blow us away. Their vacation is superior, their reserves get more days off per month with a higher guarantee (off a higher rate) than we do and they have dang near 100% scope.

Since many of those things are significantly worse at DL, you would think we would be making significantly more in rates and W-2. Right?

Or are we going to hide behind the myth that they are some crazy enigma lurking in the shadows that doesn't really apply?

By the way they are very much a hub and spoke airline. Much of what isn't has been attributed to the Wright Amendment which essentially forced stops in TX but in any case they have very strong hubs in major markets. Yes they do "non hub flying" but so does everyone. AA does 95% hub flying and their revenue is trashed and their marketshare highly marginalized because of it. SWA moves people, with or without hubs, and does it very well.

And their "pay for type" myth does nothing to create a financial advantage. All new hires still go through full training. The type is just an application stack reducer, nothing more.

They don't have multipile fleet types, but that severely limits their revenue potential. Conversely, not even counting long haul international, many other legacy airlines have a million fleet types in the same seat ranges that do the same missions. That's extremely inefficient and non productive, and its not the fault of the pilot group nor is it their responsibility to subsidize. DL does exactly that, yet despite that fact enjoys higher revenue per pilot than SWA that pays their pilots significantly more with superior scope. How can that be?

gloopy

As a rule no (although they do serve some small markets in the SW that we don't) but DL does, predominately with outsourced RJ's. But that is supposed to give us a revenue advantage. And it does...our per pilot revenue is higher than theirs is. So why should that revenue producing difference be subsidized with significantly less pay and days off for the same portion of work (small narrowbody domestic)?

gloopy

True, but since we just gave them (or they gave us, depending on how the story is spun) the ability to be used domestically before TOE then in the ER at least (which is by far the largest TOE fleet, and which is also significantly domestic only now) that inefficiency is out the window, purely in the company's favor for productivity.

slowplay

Funny, looking at the TA payscales I see that 717 Captain pays about $50 per hour MORE than you're current aircraft/position. As the block hour ratio would require 30-40 more mainline aircraft at worst case endstate (planned DCI shrinkage) that means your premise is invalid.

Again, there are no guarantees of growth, but the downside protections are far better if the shrinkage you presume actually happens.

slowplay

Which argument are you going to take, Gloop...are we parking the 757/767 and shrinking or are we giving them efficiencies that will stifle manning because we can train more readily on the 767?

gloopy

C. All of the above.

We are doing both. In the meantime, while we are shrinking, its still a large fleet and the recent changes will still let them operate that fleet far more efficiently.

I don't think that's an outrage either, I'm just pointing it out WRT the original post I replied to. Its important to consider what's going on, that's all.