Will ASA get another base???
 

Ive been here at ASA for almost 2 years, I like it a lot , very happy w my choice to come here, people ask me all the time what is your biggest complaint, if any do have? So I always tell them this......Sure regional pay could always be better and whatnot however my one negative thing is that we only have 1 base. I love ASA , for a regional it certainly is a great place to work w awesome people, and from friends of mine that fly for other regional carriers and their horror stories/complaints I think that this a good place to be at and I am very thankful for that. But my question is for u ASA people out there, do you think we will ever get another base. When / where / how long before that happens??????? I know the economy sucks and we are cost cutting like crazy to make ends meet , but when will that change? I mean Skywest who owns us has like 15 bases , so why cant we have a few.......your thoughts....thanks in advance

Skywest has an operational need to have bases all over the country because the airline has heavy ops for different airlines all over the country. With ASAs current route structure, it doesn't make any sense for them to have any other bases than ATL, where the majority of your ops take place. Whether DFW or SLC will happen again, no one knows (or even MCO) but I wouldnt count on it any time soon.

Unless we pick up additional flying (not likely at the moment), it doesn't make sense to have another base - our contract with Delta locks up most of our flying in Atlanta. Besides seems every time we get a new base (LAX, SLC) it gets pulled too quickly.

I've heard credible rumors of another base opening up sometime next spring. This will coincide with the placement of the 20 50s Delta no longer wants. an early contender was IAD, but now it sounds like that fell through. The likely contender(s) are now CLE and/or EWR.

If it's ewr...i'm goin there immediately.....i'm from jersey and everyone wants to avoid that place and it would be a 45 minute drive for me

Do you have an outstation that is serviced my two or more DAL hubs with high frequency that is locked up in long term contracts? If so then you can expect a domicile soon.

Examples, we connect the following out of this outstation bases:

TUS: Mx Base
UAL - DEN, SFO, LAX
DAL - SLC

FAT: Mx Base
UAL - SFO, LAX, DEN, LAS
DAL - SLC

PSP: Mx Base
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN, LAS
DAL - SLC

SBA:
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN, SJC
DAL - SLC

SMF:
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN
DAL - SLC

COS: Mx Base
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN, ORD
DAL - SLC, ATL

Without pilot domiciles in these outstations our cost would be much higher due to the large number of RON crews.

As for other DAL domiciles that you fly into…………………..is your flying there guaranteed by your contract? I know ASA has such wording for ATL but I’m not sure about CVG, JFK or MCO. If there isn't a contract in place then a pilot domicile makes no long tern sense seeing things can change without breach of contract.

According to SH (CP) last summer, Delta really wanted us to have MCO and CVG bases but we refused unless they gave us at least 2 year guarantees for each base.

Last summer may as well have been 20 years ago. Scott's story changes by the day!

ASA has tossed around outstation mini bases over the years but has never pulled the trigger. The top contender is BTR since it's a maintenance base with a lot of overnight flights. CAE is another one I've heard (mx base).

However, these rumors involve new hub flying with a hub base for a different airline (not Delta or UAL).

When I was in recurrent they were talking about a virtual base at CAE. This was 5 months or so ago. Have you heard anything else about this happening recently?

ASA is not the only company who has tossed the thought of a CAE base against the wall. PSA PDT and AWC are a few others.

Don't hold your breath on a new ASA domicile anytime soon.....

you can expect 200 more furloughs (when we park 20 planes next spring) before you can expect a new crew base

Knowing what and who I know, I SERIOUSLY doubt that is going to happen. Let's hear your sources. (Or are you the source?) :rolleyes:

i am THE SOURCE. that is what you can refer to me as. haha. my source is the memo that came out on december 29th under the "crj 900 news" section on ourasa that says "As part of this agreement with Delta, we will also remove 20 CRJ200 aircraft from our fleet beginning Spring
2010."

i like your source better than mine. he has better news. i hope your source isnt RP. he has some very optimistic projections.

RP? no. My sources are very high, and know what they're talking about. And I'm not talking about what they say in the crew lounge or in recurrent, I'm talking about what they say privately. They are not worried about placing the 20 airplanes and are very optimistic about future growth opportunities in other bases, flying for airlines other than DAL. That is after we make it through this year successfully.

being optimistic and having a plan in place are two entirely separate things. everybody at this airline is optimistic. but the reality is that we have really bad performance numbers, continually rank last in the aqi, and we are very inefficient overall as a company. example. we were scheduled to deadhead and fly the plane back to atl. the crew on the plane was flying to the outstation and deadheading back. ive been talkin about this and it seems a few other people have had this stuff happen to them as well. the parking lot is another example. now they are gonna have to pay extra for people to park in long term parking. its little stuff like this that really irritate me about this company. and there was the mx issue. i dont know what happened there but it doesnt sound good.

now assuming that these "other companies" that want 20 more 50 seaters (doesnt seem likely in my opinion), why wouldnt they just increase block hours among all the contract carriers that they already have in place, instead of bringing in a new company. i know xjt has a bunch of planes parked (i think it was somewhere in LA) so if youre thinking Continental, why wouldn't they give extra flying to xjt. and im sure skywest has a big enough operation to expand united flying if they needed it.

i hope i'm wrong because it seems that i am the only one who doesn't have growth and prosperity in asa's future.

One of the most common complaints about ASA is the companies lack of foresight. Everything is planned for the minute with no thought to the future and how it might turn out. Great recent example is the parking mess with overflow into the long term parking lot. Probably the summer is going to be a complete mess at the current staffing levels. More flights than last summer +10 airplanes - 80 pilots will = not much flexibility in schedules for those working

As for rumors, who knows what will happen but JP was one of the first to start calling truth to furlough rumors post New Years.

well both of us are hoping he's right this time too.

Not to burst your bubble but he also predicted furloughs each month from September through January. Does 'calling truth' one out of six times actually count?

Less airplanes doesn't always mean less flying. My question is that when we park the 20 RJs next year how much block time will we lose? If (BIG IF) we park the planes and lose ZERO hrs of block time then staffing will still be fine. Just means that the other 90 RJs will have to pick up the slack. Same can be said for the opposite, 110 RJs and a drastic cut in block hours leads to furloughs. (make is short and simple) I do agree with JP that I doubt there will be 200 ppl furloughed. I think this summer is proof of that. If what the memo said is true then, then this is going to be ASA biggest summer flying in a long while. Where did this extra flying come from? Why ASA? What is going on with the DCI carriers? All questions we don't know and can only wait to see. Now if ASA does another 2 for 1 deal then we are in trouble. I forgot who was it I was talking to at ASA, either CP or ALPA MEC, but they told me that ASA based their staffing on block hours.

Just my $.02

To be exact, I predicted furloughs were coming through the fall but stated that no one knew when. This because management was still waffling on whether to do it or not and trying to get people to take voluntary leaves.

In January, I learned they were indeed coming and within the next few weeks, which I passed along (not predicted).

So for the record, I was not wrong 5 out of 6 times. I just passed along the information I had available at the time. Believe that information or not as you wish.

Sounds like a very accurate observation.

Agreed! But I assure you another one is coming (not sure when). Factor that into your plans.

That is correct.

those are good points. so both of you agree another 2 for 1 is gonna be bad news and JP is sure another one is coming. is your source optimistic about finding homes for those planes or just the first 20. it seems to me that all roads are leading to more furloughs. and it looks like besides the 3 months out of the year where we actually have a lot of flying, the other 9 months are gonna suck. also, did you source indicate which new airlines or bases are possibilities for us.

There have been multiple people saying another 2-1 is in the works. How will this affect the contract? Is it for number of total aircraft or block hours in this case?

Also, 1000+ flights for the summer is a substantial increase, even from last summer. How dismal is the fall projection right now that the company cant even use a few people back. 600, 650 daily flights?

All of you are at ASA or like me furloughed from ASA. Think about it... how often have we heard management say that ASA must expand to survive? How they keep comparing SKW's growing fleet of 700, 900 and EMB's to us not having more then 39 700s (at the time). Now that we have 10 900's there is no doubt they are looking for more. I agree it is a matter of when another deal will go down but I also think that we MAY not have to worry too much about it because it may take time for it to happen. By then, I hope attrition would save our butts. No matter how bad the market gets airlines will have attrition and if ASA keeps their head above the water on block hours then 80 ppl leaving ASA in a year or slightly more is not out of the question. Last June-Jan (the period where things started to get bad) my seniority number still went up about 21 people. Airtran has reported a 1st Q profit and has recalled all their guys. We know many ASA pilots move over there so if Airtran does hire again in the near future, we will see a few guys leave. I think sometimes as a group (including myself) we loose sleep by over analyzing things. As I said before, management thought this summer was going to be ASA's worst summer and now it's looking to be their best. Who knows what can happen come fall. As long as our brothers and sisters remember that we are furloughed they will remind company. From what I heard from other pilots is that line pilots have brought up the topic of furloughed guys coming back. So it is at least comforting to know that we are not forgotten.

well said for once!

I think right now ASA is at around 800 daily flights? I think last summer is was at around 850-900???

After hearing about the summer flying, I bet the fall predictions are out of the window too. No one knows.....

From the e-mail, it sounds like they are doing the opposite of thinning out lines. They are just going to fatten the crap out of them to keep from recall. Just to maintain the same amount of guys on RES right now and not recall. On the upside... you guys that are not furloughed will be working for some FAT checks this summer. Wonder if you guys will even have a break for open time. OR is open time just going to be a good way for RES guy to see if he is going to get a trip. :D

HAHAHA "for once" have we butted heads before??? :confused: :D

I agree, summer flights at least 10% more than last summer was a surprise, which no one was forecasting back in january and february, so the fall schedules might be a pleasent surprise. Even if it brings a few people back, it's in the right direction.

Haha, I dont believe we have butted heads at all before. I was commenting on your positive outlook, words not often read on the forums. Just came out the wrong way.

It comes as a surprise to me as well as others that the block hours will be high for this summer. I really feel that BH and others didn't expect this, I would have to assume that if they did have places for those 20 airplanes they would be announcing recalls. For the current flying we have we aren't understaffed however I can see this being a disaster this summer because management doesn't want to look stupid... I think it's a precarious situation... If they bring back people then can't find new flying and furlough them again that's just awful... If they don't bring back people and completion factor takes a hit because of low staffing then that's really bad for the company... I guess you would have to take a chance either way.