I've tried that before as well. We're short enough on reserves that it's almost impossible for them to let you pick up a trip for hispeeds. I'm pretty sure than can easily assign a resreve to a 3/4 day trip, but I don't think they can just block out a reserve on 4 hispeeds in a row like we do.

 

i flew with a guy on the interview team on friday. he said they have gone from 20 guys at a time to 10. and they have gone from a class starting every monday, to every other monday. but they are still hiring, and still trying to get everyone they can. we still had 5 captain vacancies go unfilled on the last bid.

 

The official word that I got from recruitment on 06/12 is that we're placing everyone that gets hired this month into a pool. All interview dates/classes after June are postponed until they know what's going on with Delta; however, this can change on a day-to-day basis. You could just email them to get a legitimate update.

We aren't as short-staffed as we used to be. In fact, one of the board of directors came to my recurrent class last week and said we have more reserves now than we've ever had before. Who knows though... management can be a bunch of smoke and mirrors. I have a feeling this Delta thing is just that.

 

I think there we're short on captains because so many FO's make lateral moves and/or are hired with 200-400 hours and take a good 3 years to hit captain mins. Just a guess.

 

So let me get this straight: Pinnacle asked Delta to begin proceedings to cancel their agreement simply to shakedown the Pinnacle pilots? And you are proposing that Delta agreed to this?

No. Delta is working to eliminate available seats with minimum cost to their own operation. They are doing this by eradicating a couple of their (too many) connection carriers: Mesa and Pinnacle.

 

Any guesses as to which company spends more money keeping their lawyers on the sidelines on retainer for just this eventuality?

Hint: It's the one that's been through bankruptcy.

 

With Delta backing off on removing the contract, is there any word on new hire classes?

 

Don't know for sure, but I heard at the Corporate Education Center July classes are planned... As far as current training, there is the 6/2 class of 10 finishing up ground school this week. The other classes from May are in the CPTs and sims.

 

Too bad they are breaking a service agreement by doing so. Pinnacle was hosed by the A+14 arrival metric, but the service agreement said that the flight schedules would be something that BOTH Delta AND Pinnacle would agree mutually upon. That never happened.

So, Delta cancels Pinnacle flying in a heartbeat to backout. Like you said, to eradicate one of too many connection carriers.

I hate to say it, but from the airline services agreement point of view, it wasn't exactly legal. If it goes to court, Pinnacle would at the very least get an injunction, and Delta would have to pay Pinnacle $$$ (like they are paying off Mesa).

Pretty cheap of Delta to pull this kinda move, IMO. They signed a contract for 10 years, and then terminate it in 6 months before the jets are even delivered. Reasoning the cancellation on poor performance, where really, Delta gave schedules that were physically impossible to meet. Exmplain to me how you can fly ATL to TLH in 15 minutes air time. Not even afterburners could do that.

 

we never stopped hiring and from what i have been told we haven't even stopped classes. infact there are interviews tomorrow. instead of running classes every monday they have switched to every other monday. we still need pilots though. they have upped the crews in ATL to cover the flying over there. they now want 9 crews per plane. on the nwa side we probably only have 5. so they really want to get this delta deal back and will overstaff ATL to do so.