Originally Posted by Pilotguy143

displacement bid is out on epic.

62 downgrades, no furloughs.

we are loosing our best captains. I hope all effected can go to Jetblue.

Originally Posted by irrelevant

Anyone flying for Comair at present can be forgiven for having a bad day, week, month, year, or career. I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective, and I don't think it's not valid to some degree. I don't mind anyone disagreeing with me (If I did, I wouldn't be married ), but I will work to correct inadvertent, or intentional, misrepresentations.

By the way, the Flight Attendants got their first contract some time after 9/11. If I recall correctly, it was a year to eighteen months after that date. I agree this also raised Comair's operating costs, just as the pilot contract did.

Leadership at Comair has focused exclusively on one thing during the last five years - reducing costs. While cost reduction is a very important of operating a successful business, it is not the only thing needed. Finding ways to grow the business, and grow revenue is equally important. In this area, Comair has failed miserably, and it is not due to the strike, it's due to malaise, and Delta's relegation of the President's role to that of Secretary.

To this day, I smile when I read company messages and press releases about how much money the company will save by removing aircraft from service. It's always amusing that they forget to mention how much revenue they're losing in the process, and how much their block hour costs are going to increase because there are fewer junior pilots available to work at reduced rates.

Again, my PPAS example was to illustrate how different departments within Comair started working against one another. This is just one example, and one I think is easiest for those of us here who are pilots to understand. The efficacy of PPAS is beyond my ability to calculate. I'm happy to fly using it. It helps me recover some of what was taken away during bankruptcy because of the productivity factor.

Prior to the bankruptcy, from my perspective, there was a sense of urgency among most flight crews. I remember the overzealous effort of a summer in 2005, or so, to reduce APU usage dramatically. The crews did a phenomenal job of operating with reduced APU usage despite the toll it took on passengers. I think most of us knew things were getting tough, and most of us went that extra mile to hold things together.

After the first round of concessions for growth failed, and the bankruptcy occurred, during which management under oath stated Comair was projected to earn a $50 million profit during the year they were filing bankruptcy, the "go the extra mile" effort disappeared. What was the point?

This is where effective leadership should have stepped up and worked to move the company forward. Instead, leadership continued to harp on about costs. Guess what? That ship sailed once you agreed to new labor contracts during bankruptcy. At some point, you've got to understand that you need to look elsewhere to pad your profits. Growing revenue, and marketing your strengths would be a good place to start.

Again, feel free to disagree.

Originally Posted by Boomer

Conventional wisdom says that when an airline needs First officers, it hires them. But that's not how they do things at Comair.

At Comair, they downgrade Captains.

This is probably not the best way to get our costs in line...

Originally Posted by skywatch

Maybe it makes sense if you only need FO's for a short time - like the summer travel season - and by the time you brought back and trained all the furloughed pilots (full footprint - $$$), it would be late summer and time to furlough them again...

Originally Posted by fjetter

.....Comair Standard

Originally Posted by Av8tion

+1

So how many people are still atually left at comair... is it down to the point of 50-year-old FOs and 60-year-old captains yet?

Originally Posted by Glofliser

Looks like we are around 985 active pilots and after the displacement of 62 DTW captains, the most junior captain is somewhere around empl # 15500, hired in -99.

Originally Posted by Boomer

Yup, 12 years just to commute to reserve in Detroit - livin' the dream...