Northwest / Delta Regional Flying
 

For this thread, I thought it would be a good idea to get everyone to post any information you may have regarding NW / DAL regional flying. Ideally, post an article and cite the source and then discuss. Since the majority of talk at this point centers on the "mainline" NW and DAL, I thought it would be a good idea for us "regional" types to throw around what we know.

Here's what I've got.


Q. I fly from a smaller city on a regional jet. What will happen to that service?

A. There will be changes in who is flying those jets, but that's likely to be behind the scenes. Currently Delta owns regional carrier Comair, and Northwest owns Mesaba and Compass airlines. Delta has discussed selling Comair in the past. Delta CEO Richard Anderson said on Tuesday, "We will be optimizing both the number of carriers we have and where they operate to maximize the efficiency of that network."

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...,4332814.story

That is CEO speak for, "do not worry investors, we have this stuff under control". When in reality, who know what is going on?

From the NW/Delta mereger press conference:
"Northwest owns Mesaba and Compass airlines, which are very efficient companies".......... (no Pinnacle mention)
Translation:
Mesaba and Compass will be OK and probably grow in a medium-long term.......Pinnacle........eeehhh.....well.......w e'll figure out a way to get rid of them....

Northwest doesn't own Pinnacle. That's why Delta only mentioned Comair, not ASA, Freedom, Chautauqua, Pinnacle, Shuttle America, and ExpressJet.

Only problem: Anderson and Uncle Phil are good buddies. Anderson built Pinchanickle.

This was all planned out a long time ago. I believe Pinnacle is the only regional with LONG term contracts that were RECENTLY signed for both carriers.
Contracts are not that easy to get out of, since neither carrier is in bankruptcy. Even with our crappy performance, it is not bad enough to cancel the contracts.

Pinnacle is in good shape. Once the pilots get a contract, performance numbers will be even better.

I'm with Spooled on this one because:

1. It makes sense.
2. It makes me feel better as a 9E FO.

For the rest of you Pinnacle People - hopefully the schedules go back to not sucking so hard next month.

And I'll be dizzammed if they're gonna scare me into voting in a crap contract.

just read our mec leaders message and keep flying a safe operation.

We are fortunate to have very robust, long-term air service agreements with both Delta and Northwest that will be binding on the new carrier. These agreements leave little wiggle room to be cancelled or modified before their expiration date as evidenced by Phil Trenary’s recent shareholder conference calls and the recent upgrading of our stock by J.P. Morgan. J.P. Morgan also went on to say that the airline offers a “unique combination of free cash flow and contract certainty” and “with legacy airlines searching (and finding) opportunities to scale back on their regional commitments, we see little risk for Pinnacle.” Many of our fellow Airlink/Connection carriers are not so fortunate in the terms or longevity of their service agreements and a few of them don’t even operate under the protections of a binding contract.


pinnacle will also see strong earnings for the next several years.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...2599398a94.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/investor...gn_id=rss_null

our mec leader also said that the scare tactics will begin and the company will all make us feel like our jobs are on the line. i remember when nwa declared bankruptcy they said the same things. infact they said that we would never get another contract with nwa before we had a pilot contract. well we know that wasn't true.

and whats even funnier is that on his last company call he said getting a pilot contract isn't important for getting new business or keeping the flying we have. i hope the mediator heard that and will release us. then we will see if he feels the same way when we are walking off property.

but once the merger is finalized by the end of the year non of us will have to speculate.

Ok. but here are some facts:
1. Mesaba and Compass are owned by NW (will be part of the new Delta)
NW has been investing in Mesaba and Compass, and yes....at some point they may want to sell both companies, but for know, they want them to grow and make money.
2. Pinnacle (with the exception of Delta Connection operation) is a pure 50 seater operator. Does the conctract give you the option to replace those 50 seaters for 76 seaters? YES. Have NW even mention the possiblity of giving PNCL 900s? NO. They might in the future, but for now 50 seaters got to go, and I don't think they will be able to replace them in a short term with 129 900s....
3. There's a 10 year contract, but I wonder........what's going to happen with that contract if we strike?

I don't want to sound all negative, but I think is time to look at the signs too. Rough times ahead......

1. being owned by delta/nwa means nothing. that is the problem there. infact if we were wholly owned i would be more worried than if we werent. if someone could clarify i would like to know if compass/mesaba/comair actually have binding contract for x amount of flying that they have to do. i think that is what S.E. was refering to when he said some of our buddies dont even have a contract. sure they mentioned their name in the conference call but that means nothing. did they mention skywest, no. is there a chance in hell they will get rid of their largest and one of their best regionals, no. so the easiest people you can cut back on regional flying would be the people that you own and have no contract with.

2. who cares about nwa anymore? delta will own nwa by the end of the year and guess who we have the 900 contract with? delta.

3. it wont matter. when we get released we will have a contract in 30 days and 30 seconds, like a guy on our boards says.

I think it's funny how Pinnacle guys think they are in "good" shape, while Mesaba guys think they too are in "good" shape. The fact is, nobody really knows at this point, so all we can do is wait...

exactly what i said. by the end of the year we wont even have to speculate anymore. and it will be a while before anything really starts to happen.

You sound like you've been reading the stuff that IDOIT Boyd's been putting out.

I doubt any of the regionals will really know what is really going to happen for at least another year. The dust from the merger won't settle enough to touch the regionals for a long time, if ever.

it very well could take a little longer than that for things to work themselves out. my guess is things won't be clear til the end of '09.

I believe comair is required to have at least 41% of the DCI flying per contract/agreement.

I'm not trying to jump on the "doom and gloom" bandwagon, but jeez you 9E guys who actually think that you're in a GOOD situation are killing me!

How are you going to fly your wonderful 10 year contract if you're sitting on the other side of a picket line?

If NewDelta does try to back out of your contract, even illegally, how long do you think PNCL can afford to stay in court against the largest airline in the WORLD (with billions in cash in the bank)?

Why do you think that if you get the contract you deserve, *poof* instantly overnight everyone will magically be happy, productive, and efficient enough to be competitive?

Don't take this as bashing 9E, i'm not, I've got a LOT of friends there from new hires to captains to check airmen and even scheduling, and I wish them all the best. But as they say, "Denial" isn't just a river in Egypt...

wait and see.

if you read my post i don't disagree with anything you said here. you are right, a 10 year contract is worth nothing if we get to strike, which is what i said.

delta trying to get out of the contract "ILLEGALLY" wouldn't even make sense and they wouldn't do it. they could have done it to mesa years ago but they waited till they could legally do it. i wouldn't think that an airline who is trying to win approval by the government and the people would start illegally doing anything.

and i never said that when we get a new contract that overnight we will all be happy. they dont even follow the current contract we have. but our lives and pocket books would be a lot better if we did get a new contract. is there any doubt in that? they may still not follow it but if we get a good enough contract we will actually have something to fight back with instead of our open to interpretation contract that we have right now. and we were the most efficient rj operator in the world for 2 years according to bombardier. and that was with the **** poor contract we have now.

and i don't care if you bash pinnacle. that stuff doesn't matter to me. all i have ever stated on here is MY experience at pinnacle. some have had it much worse than me, and some have had it better. lots of people try and bash pinnacle but it doesn't phase me because most of what they say has never happened to me. and thats the way i like it. i don't pick up opentime, i don't answer the phone for jm assignements, and i bid for max days off and usually get 18-20 a month. its hard to hate a place you are only at 10 days a month. i spend most of my time playing with my son and hanging out with family and friends.

but just because my life is good doesn't mean i am not ready and willing to strike for the better of the pilot group. we are all in this together.

Do you think Delta didn't learn anything from the Comair strike?

30 days 30 seconds...nuff said.

I'll have to write this one down...:rolleyes:

I don't do coffee either. But I'm always in the mood for some English Breakfast.

Maybe I'm not getting it, but any good Pilot knows that Coffee is an essential tool in completing a flight!

Thank you

Apparently, I'm not the only one who refuses to drink the kool aid.

My take on this is that Pinnacle will probably survive this merger and wind up with maybe some more DAL regional flying because I think Anderson will farm out more US domestic flying to Pinnacle and among others such as Mesaba and Compass. I do not fly for 9E so don't take this as a wishful thinking. It is a projection based on the information I have gathered up to this point.

What will happen to other regionals like Mesaba, Compass, Comair Skywest and others is on many people's mind nowadays so I will make my forecast here. Based on what's been happening at Mesaba and Compass, I think the Mesaba Compass Holding corporation will wind up running Mesaba and Compass. Anderson of the New DAL will probably replace the current top management team running the show at Compass and Mesaba. I seriously doubt the current management team at Compass surviving this merger. It is hard to predict what will happen to Comair. But the indications are that Comair may come up on the sale block soon after the merger. Some regionals will be minimized, and indications are fairly clear which ones will go away but I am not going to name them for obvious reasons.

Mesaba has been picking up most of the former DC9 routes and new destinations are added every month.

Why do you feel as if comair is going to be sold post merger? What made you come to this conclusion?

It is a speculation but if you recall DAL was going to sell before the merger as DAL management felt it was burned by the Comair strike. There are couple of factors against Comair as far as DAL management is concerned and the foremost is that Comair is heavy with 50 seat RJs, which are no longer economically viable for DAL and Anderson needs to unload them and the quickest way to do that is to sell and it also raises cash. The other is there is a bad blood between DAL management team and Comair and more than a few aviation analysts have forecasted the sale of Comair as the likely scenario. But then again, who knows what the new DAL will do. They may just keep Comair and try to convert CRJ200s to all CRJ7 and 9s.

The rumor mill around here is that we are getting more 90's than anticipated. Our presidente mentioned more 90's to a new hire FA class.

I'm really not gonna bite on the "burned by comair strike thing". It's obviously a fact, DL did get shafted when that happened, but it was also about 5 years ago. They did/have wanted to sell comair for a while. But the difficulty selling comair, is the exact problem Delta is having. NO ONE wants to buy a 50 seat heavy airline.

I don't think DL will shed us at this point, hey..maybe even seeing what NW has done with it's two regionals and how it can be a harmonious partnership may change its recent strategy of pitting the regionals against each other...Put us all in a boardroom and have us peck each others eyes out to the tune of "how low can you go?".

Anderson seems like a smart guy, he might realize that "hey, we let Mesa take a *(#$@(#$ load of flying..and now look what's going on"

Cheapest isn't bestest, Comair can be DL's fall back. Even if we're a bit of a cashcow "up front" this company has made A MASSIVE amount of money for daddy D.

Who knows though, anything can happen.

Since you work for Comair, you might be right at that. I did read that DAL likes the CRJ9 performance result coming in to DAL and to NWA versus the E175s, so it would not surprise me one bit if DAL plans to order more CRJ9s for Comair and replace CRJ200s. This is especially true when the fuel price keeps skyrocketing. Even a 10% fuel savings could change the dynamics.

Delta President Ed Bastian said Thurs 17 APR that the Comair 50 seaters are being replaced with 70 and 90 seaters, and said CVG and Comair are a big part of Delta's plans for the future... He delivered a new 90 yesturday when the DL management team flew into CVG for a press conference and meeting with KY Governor and local politians. Hs comments further emphasized that Comair's role in the North East is a big factor in its value to the system. --- DL picked comair to replace the Big Sky flying already, and the innitial plans to park 12 planes was reduced to just parking 8--- Comair PR lady even hinted that pilot hiring was going to start back up.

I gaurantee you that Pinnacle will be around after the merger is over.

Guarantee. Wow i wish i had that confidence in Mesaba being around. I think they will but who knows. From what i understand 9e could lose their flying because they broke the contract performance but i have no idea because i do not work there.

Best of luck to everyone

Here's what I think...
I'm gonna start my 4 day trip tomorrow, do my job and then go home. Until the planes I fly say Delta Connection on the side ... nothing has happened. Until I get an official f-word letter...nothing has happened. Until my company has been awarded more or less flying...nothing has happened. It won't do me any good to get myself worked up into a tizzy over all this speculation. Last time I checked, my crystal ball didn't work worth a damn anyway.

Read this quote in a book one time. Seems applicable here: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I'm glad we got that cleared up

Best advice I've heard yet!

not even close. if you look at the stats we aren't the best, but comair, asa, and mesa are still worse than us on performance.

Dude, I don't have much faith in your guarantee since you can't even spell the word. :D

One day I will learn how to spell. Hey, I know thats a bold statement that I made, but here is why i say it, I believe that the decisions on who was going to be flying what were made a long time ago. I don't think Delta would have let us in on flying if we were going to go away quickly. Add that to our long term contracts with NWA and Delta, and I am pretty confident I will have a job. I think all the regionals will stay at first and then slowly get weeded out. Could pinnacle lose flying? Yes they could and if it happens i will be the first to admit that I was wrong, but we cant control it so lets just all go to work and see what happens.

There is no way - short of something catastrophic - that would send Pinnacle under with this merger...

Very well said!

Ofcourse it wouldn't make sense, just like our good old uncle didn't try (and succeeded if I may) to divide and conquer between our flying and the acquisition and subsequent enlargement of the Colgan side. They'll call it DeltaWest and overnight both our contracts with NW and DL will be void and moot. Don't even think you'd need a battery of lawyers for that.

I agree with whomever wrote that NO ONE knows anything. We are kidding ourselves if we think we are in a better position than anybody else because we have some delta contract (which btw out of all DCI carriers we've got the worst performance), because Anderson and PT are buddy buddies, because of any other pilot's mind made up reason that let's us sleep comfortable at night.

The only thing that is probably working for us is the fact that it'll take a long time for the dust to sattle in a post merger environment and even that is assuming fuel cost wouldn't kill us overnight with fuel trading already at a $117 a barrel. How long will we keep on flying MSP-RST, DTW-FNT, DTW-CAK, MSP-FAR and so on with that kindof a reality?

Also with that kind of a thought process please remember that the rest of our colleagues in the different regionals will be benefiting from the same, in other words.... Same *******, different day.

Bottom line, future is uncertain and it's time we stop eating the union propaganda as fast as we dismiss PT and his aids propaganda. It's all the same crap....one is wrapped up in a shiny blue logo, the other in the form of a Tennessee address.

Well said. Whether you fly for Pinnacle, Mesaba or Compass we are all in the same family of Regional Pilots. I wish the best for all of us. Most of us are just trying to make it one day at a time.