787 Cancellations
 

It looks like the rumorerd 787 order cancellations will occur soon. As far back as early 2007 NWA management had expressed doubts about the aircraft because of the weight and range issue. It can not fly several of the routes NWA purchased it for and has even greater issues out of ATL. The last lounge brief where this was discussed mentioned that the -9 is the aircraft they really want. The bad news is the loss of firm orders for the combined airline. The good news is that it looks like they will be replaced with 777 orders. It will be interesting to see what the mix of 787's if any and 777 orders ends up as. It will also be interesting to see how many 787-900 orders we place. Lets hope its a bunch!


Dec 1 (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc, which bought Northwest
Airlines Corp in October, plans to seek significant changes
to aircraft orders both carriers had placed individually with
Boeing Co, The Wall Street Journal said.

Delta is likely to scale back a Northwest order for Boeing's
new, but delayed, 787 Dreamliner, and ask the manufacturer to
expand a Delta order for the 777-200LR aircraft, the
newspaper said, citing people familiar with Delta's plans.

The 777-200LR is a long-range aircraft that carries at least
50 more passengers and would better enable the combined
carrier to continue pursuing Delta's strategy to shift a
greater percentage of its flights to long overseas routes,
the paper said.

The two companies could not be immediately reached for
comment by Reuters.

No final decisions have been made regarding the new aircraft,
the WSJ told the paper, and Delta has yet to officially ask
Boeing to alter its order book.

A change in orders from Delta is unlikely to significantly
hurt Boeing as it has secured other customers for 787s, and
the manufacturer will be willing to expand its order book for
the more expensive 777-200LR, the paper said, citing people
familiar with the situation.

Delta declined to comment on specific order plans, the
Journal reported, but said the company believes the long-term
needs of a merged fleet would differ from those of each
airline individually.

The report may be correct or possibly economic leverage by DAL towards BA. Like all rumors in the airline industry time will tell...... Hopefully if any change to the order is made it is at least replaced with another wide bodied aircraft and not just cancelled!

It won't be the 777-200LR,it will be the 777-300ER and it will be the replacement for the 747-400. Any bets ?

Delta management has said all along that they did not favor the 787-800. Lounge briefs mentioned the 777 swap since the merger was announced. The last month however the rumor has been the first 6 787-800 would come on schedule and then a delay and the rest would be 900's. The first six 800's would be traded at a later date for 900's. This may turn out to be the plan with additional 777's added to the mix. Lets hope the net result is a gain in airframes!

I hope not! I just finished my type rating in the 744 and going back to school is not something I want to do in the next few years......:eek:

Ya'll will love Virginia Ave.,I don't think this is happening soon.maybe over a 5 year period.The 74's will be around for a while longer.Totally my opinion.

The 747-200 are going sooner rather then later. Looks like they will all be gone in 2 years. In the last LCA meeting they put out that the 400's would be gone within 5 years. Plans change so lets hope they stay a bit longer.

Anderson has said on several occasions that the 787-800s had big problems.
This just makes it official that he doesn't want them. Now the negotiations with Boeing will get serious about how much the replacement 777s will cost.
Boeing owes NWA some 787 "compensation" for late deliveries and performance below specs.
All 777s? Some 787-900s? Who knows? Its all about the Benjamins.

We may never see a 787-800 on property. Delta may well sell them to someone else if they can't work a deal with Boeing to pass on those jets. As others have said, they really want the -900. I think you will see the -800s converted to a mix of 772LRs and 773ERs. Then the rest of the 787 options converted to the -900.

No reason to take a small number of -800s. The 330 and 7ER can fill that mission.

Word from some of our head honcho pilots is that this absolutely cannot happen because the 777 delivery slots are full, full and full. No way to get any additional ones in the near future unless another customer sells you their slot.

I couldn't give you a quoted source but I recall reading a while back that DAL had preferential slots. Even though the delivery line is full, Boeing keeps some phantom slots open for customers like DAL. If the slots are not exercised than they go to the next party in line. This allows companies like DAL, AMR and such first rights.

Delta has 45 delivery positions on the 777 available between now and 2015. They will have no trouble getting slots additional slots if they want more. As just happened with the AMR order if Delta wants any type of aircraft in Boeing fleet they will find a slot and get the aircraft to Delta. The VP of flight ups once stated that they could get any airframe whenever they wanted it as one of Boeings largest customers.

Yes, DAL can get these jets.

Fellas,

Not trying to pick a fight here or poke anyone in the eye but since many of us have 25-30 yrs potentially at this company.....If DAL chooses to cancel the 787-800's and replace the 74's in five years with 777's, what does that do to potential fences from the SLI if they do happen on those airframes? Do they go away? Thanks since I did not remember reading NWA proposing alternatives to this possible scenario.

Well,

Hate to tell this to your checkbook........but this is what most of the Red/Green disputes were over.

Was the new jet a new airplane type (good for green, 1 for 1) or a replacement airplane (good for red with old airplane fences).

So, don't know. Get your popcorn............:D

Ferd <-----post merger guy then, premerger guy now;)

I suspect that will depend on the award and how it is structured.

What would you say to fences?

Exactly! Plus, let's all pray Bloch writes better than Roberts did. Poorly written awards led to many of the Red/Green disputes.

I agree if it happens it will probably require an interpretation. If the extra 777's were exchanged for pre-merger NW 787 positions, I would expect position credit at some sort of ratio similar how possible additional 757/767 positions are being handled. It does not really matter the aircraft, but who brought the positions, which of course still awaits the SLI methodology, C&R used.


Personally I think this article is a shot across the bow to Boeing, and RA is going to use the 787 delays for maximum leverage for as many additional aircraft as possible while still maintaining 787 first in line poistions (that's the options as well). Even if DAL doesn't need them right away, they'd be nuts to give that first in line option up to a competitor to use against them.

I'm not for fences on anything. Even now. If we are one pilot group we should not have divisive policies that exclude a part of our membership. We are all paying the same dues to the same organization so someone is essentially paying to have themselves excluded from the group and its benefits. If we have relative seniority and dont rebid the system then people will still hold what they hold and folks would move around the system as AE's are done

I disagree. I think there have to be at least some short term fences. If management decides to park all the DC-9s, I don't think any Delta pilots should be furloughed or even bumped out of their seats or out of their base. Conversly if they park 88s, I don't think any NWA pilots should be bumped out of their seats or out of their base.

The problem with the idea that people can keep thier seats is that management is going to move airplanes around. There is no such thing as no bump no flush when fleets start to move around the system. I think we need fences long enough to keep everyone on thier respective fleet until the aircraft movement among bases is complete.

It's more than a shot across the bow. DAL is currently shopping for airplanes on many fronts. Airbus is courting DAL like a southern debutante trying to give us airplanes to shoot down the 787 until its own A350 is online. They are willing to sell the A330 at firesale prices. DAL is leveraging our position to the extent that Boeing is worried about our order and trying to find a way to recoup. That means 777-300, position for the 787-9, and a few 777-200LR's. There are so many things going on in ATl and MSP with so many groupings of people that it looks like a world championship pictionary tournament at both headquarters with meeting after meeting and focus group after focus group.

I do not think that you will see that.

I also think that if anyone furloughs both sides will feel it. (One big family, remember....)

I know. It is kind of fun to watch. Some of deals are done, some are not.

Here's a wild rumor I heard. Real cheap 767-400s might become available because Boeing wants to keep the line running in the hopes they might still get a KC767 tanker contract from the Air Force.
I thought Airbus won that tanker contract?

Boeing appealed the decision and won. They basically claimed that the Air Force didn't follow their own criteria they laid out in the request for bids. So, we are pretty much back to square one on the whole tanker deal.

I didn't know that. I guess maybe the 767 rumor has some credibility. It was an old Air Force buddy who told me about it. I could see Delta buying some brand new 767s if the price was right.

It is a good rumor, and one that has been floated around.

Guys are also worried the the 7ER base in CVG give the company greater flexibility in furloughing from the ER in NYC. (This one is possible, but not probable)

furlough out? Did you mean displace out?

No, I meant that having a new senior ER base in CVG would reduce the costs associated with training pilots that are currently on the ER.
Without this new base it would require a tremendous amount of training to do so. *Displace or furlough. With this new base, they literally could hit the street with out a massive displacement first. See many of the junior ER pilots in NYC are late 07 and 08 hires.
(Someone pointed this out on our DALPA board, and I admit that it makes sense, in a scheming backhanded sort of way. There is not talk about it as far as I know. To me it seemed like a very plausable reason to make CVG an ER base, that is all. Read nothing in to it, except that someone had a different way at looking at this new base. I am not inferring anything)
It truly made my mouth drop when I read it. I was like, damn that is tricky.

Here's something that hit me today while I was running. Instead of straight fences, what about a one for one exchange between seats/aircraft. Meaning that if a NWA guy was able to bid/hold 777CA/FO, then there would have to be a DAL guy capable of bidding/holding 74CA/FO, Same for the A330/76-4. If one guy on each side could not hold it then the other guy cannot move over. Have this for like 5-10 years then it goes away. Eventually we need to be one pilot group. Just a thought. Hopefully the fleet is moved around prior to SOC.

On the NW widebody side, if they move fleets around prior to SOC, there will be an internal bump and flush due to the C&R from the previous merger award. SEA and DTW have a large number of former Red Book Captains on the widebody. Moving those aircraft out to say, ATL, would have the effect of displacing all the Red Book guys off the airplane and replacing them with former Green Book guys that are senior to them but were previously fenced.

Before or after SOC won't matter much. Many of those Red Book guys who are "out of seniority" are going to get bumped when the flying shifts.

Unless we get something nice from the company for a "pick up and drop" clause (like when they moved the -400 from NYC to DTW without a rebid). What do we want? Hummmmmmmm?

I bet it gets rebid.

$$$$$$$$$$$$:eek:

I agree with that Fred.

Management has already accumulated a growing list of little "problems" that are going to need cooperation from ALPA to fix. There will be LOAs.
Ferd is spot on -- $$$.

Say it. Show me the money. Louder. Show me the money.

No, louder Jerry!

Show me the money !!

Unfortunately, DALPA's reply to mgmt overtures tends toward, "You had me at hello".

Now that's funny!

Just remember though, you're getting about 5,000 cobras added to this "love affair." Anderson's going to have to hope he develops an immunity to cobra venom.

Carl

He does not heed to. He will just stick someone else in front of the snakes. Call it a sacrificial Lamb if you will.