Yeah...like why they tried to dump 9e at the start of this whole merger...just take the bogey next time Trenary.:D

none of it will ever make sense. i mean comair has people on furlough yet all I think all the DCI guys have at least 2 of comairs 200's to fly around. So they furlough from comair and give other airlines their planes to fly around when comair could do it since they had the planes to begin with. now we are taking those comair 200's and flying them in jfk and lga where they were flying before but now with pinnacle pilots instead of comair pilots.

It wasn't Anderson that came up with that plan from what I saw on CNBC...RA said he never planned to cut them...

With being wholly owned, can they just yank aircraft at will from Comair and Mesaba? No ASA to protect you?

Basically yes. Delta would still have to pay the leases for them while parked but pay no other penalty. That's why Comair has been dumping every CRJ that's lease comes up ( and even parking some others waiting for the lease to end) and why all the Saabs are being opted out with the early termination clause on the leases that were put in with the bankruptcy.

How is the deal cut with ASA and their 900's going to work?

They agreed to take out 20 CRJ-200's in exchange for 10 CRJ-900's. That deal was made months ago, and another deal has not been made sense.

If DAL goes through its plan to park most of the 50 seat RJs, most of the DCIs whether WO or not will continue to shrink. XJ only has 17 CRJ200s so even if they are all parked in the near future that is nowhere near as catastrophic as it would be for Comair, SkyWest, or Pinnacle which has in excess of hundreds of CRJ200s.

DAL will probably park all Saabs by the end of 2011 but after this year's cut, XJ is only left with 28 Saabs, and it looks like CRJ200s from all DCIs will not be safe from the chopping block. I think current DAL CEO is in a bit of a quandry due to errors made by previous CEO. Because 10 plus DCI contracts were signed away by previous management, DAL risk expensive legal battles if it tries to cancel DCI contracts with SkyWest/ASA, Pinnacle or CHQ. But his beancounters and legal advisors may give him the green signal to cancel them one at a time if the cost of getting sued is actually cheaper than going through with the continuing DCI agreements.

Current DAL CEO has said many times he wants to keep most of the DCI flying inhouse in the future. Whether he will be able to do so is a big question mark.

Pinnacle's nwa contract was signed by the same people who moved from nwa to delta. Pinnacle's delta contract was signed while RA was in office. So there was no error by the previous leaders. This is exactly what he wants. The contracts they want to cut are coming up and wont be renewed. The wholly owneds are going to take the biggest slash. RA doesn't want the regional flying in house. That is the problem. He cant do it in house cheaper than he can by contracting it out.

It was all set up before he left. While he was ceo we got a new contract with nwa good till 2017. He left nwa and went to united health care. Pinnacle then switched to united healthcare for insurance when he became ceo. then he leaves united health care and we drop them as our insurance provider and switch to cigna. just a little after he steps into office at delta we get a 900 contract. Pinnacle has been following RA around for several years now.

Remember: Current DAL CEO was NWA CEO just a few years ago. This stuff is years in the making.

We shall see. I guess we agree to disagree. I find it interesting that you think 9E will be safe from the CRJ200 chopping block. Granted 9E is much cheaper to operate than XJ but the bottom line is DAL does not keep all the profit from 9E operation. XJ has gotten expensive with the very top heavy pilot roster but DAL gets to keep all the profit. Until some DAL beancounter shows us the number breakdown, you can't make such a blanket statement that DAL cannot do it cheaper inhouse. At any case even if contract carriers can do it cheaper, that saving is wiped out if you have to pay them guaranteed profit per contract.

Some of the things may have been in the making for the past few years or so but the next short term tenure of RA is a different ball game. Different dynamics and economic situations makes it for a different strategy.

I just hope I move on before the next big roller coaster ride.