The upcoming Delta Connection shuffle.
 

I have been hearing from a variety of sources that Delta is in the process of doing quite a bit of realigning of the DCI carriers. Especially in light of the DCA-LGA slot swap. At Compass we are looking at a lot more SLC and western flying. I hear Go Jets is probably going to be DTW and or NYC. And that even SkyWest will have a NYC. Has anyone heard anything definitive?

Whatever outcome is the absolute WORST for your airline, is generally what Delta will decide to do.

This.........

Yep sounds about right, an east coast airline going west and an west coast airline going east.

Hopefully if this shuffle happens it involves a 9E SLC base, would love to move out there again and be a part time ski bum!

This sort of churn is actually beneficial for DAL in the long run...uprooting crews encourages major-eligible CA's to bail instead of settling into a comfortable situation to become expensive and pesky regional lifers.

Is DAL smart enough to actually factor this in? Who knows.

It also prevents any single regional from completely "owning" a hub or route in the event of a strike.

True but it causes immense additional costs and delays/cancelations by pulling a company so far from its crew/maintenance bases. Now if Delta wants to operate in a much more expensive way for the sake of avoiding a strike that hasn't even come close to happening since Comair in 01.... Well no wonder the passengers see right through the customer first B.S. they have been peddling.

As a former Comair-er..I know this all too well. I understand it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it! :)

The way Delta treats their regionals may be "good business sense", but it's also deplorable.

This is Delta Business 101: minimize subcontractor control (see Comair) and maximize whipsaw.

They are the best at it.

Delta/DCI SOP. the same thing will happen again before the summer. Semi-annual shuffle. Get used to it. And agreed. It won't be what you want.

Although that's a nice collateral/downrange effect, I SERIOUSLY doubt the bean counters at DAL DCI care about what the seniority demographic is a XYZ DelCon carrier. ALL the DCI carrier is a line item cost, PERIOD. DAL management couldn't care less how the DelCon carrier achieves that cost.

Being a part of the process at multiple carriers multiple times, the mainline partner simply didn't care. All we heard from our managements was "you pilots are too expensive and need to get the costs down", so it effects EVERYBODY.

And don't forget, mechanics, FA's, etc are part of that equation as well.

Looking at January schedule. You can see Compass doing SLC-SNA (3x day) and SLC-BZN. Interesting.

Where can you see the dci schedule?

Customers sure seem to be buying though, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of profit each quarter. Does Delta have enough money to keep uprooting the regionals if they so choose? Sounds like the answer is YES.

We are also serving ONT, DFW, MCI, and IAH (IAH-SLC). According to what's on Delta Net as the proposed schedule. Most of it starts in Feb. though.

If there is one thing I've learned from working for a DCI carrier it's this...take whatever you think is going to happen.......now take the complete opposite of that and thats what will actually happen...the more it makes sense, the more Delta will do the opposite, pure and simple...

Why do we even think there is going to be a shuffle?
I havent heard or seen anything indicating that there is going to be a major shift in flying yet. Most of the time, I hear that the "marketing hours" arent complete until half way thru the previous month...
This could be as minor as moving regional flying from JFK to LGA; and having more flights flown by mainline like DL is doing in ATL.
From a 9E perspective, MEM has barely any flying left as compared to what we used to fly there. I would be suprised to see MEM go but, I wouldnt be suprised to see us move to LGA from JFK - Or our union sign yet another LOA and screw us with a co-terminal base.

Comair pilot bid packs come out around the 1st for the next month. Delta must give Comair their flying long before the timeframe you're hearing.

Egg nog time.

But they do know why and its the reason DAL doesn't want to own Comair and AA is getting rid of Eagle.

only one thing is for sure, any new flying going forward or transfer of flying is going to go jet

just looked at the delta schedules for january myself and saw that big ole' G7 on there. Since we are not allowed to say anything negative I think its awesome.
Flight 6154 STL DTW im going to list to be on the first flight, but i will probably get bumped by a ramper.

where are you seeing this? looked on travelnet and dont see it

You are 100% accurate about that....the lowest bidder wins..who cares how they treat/pay their employees, it's all about the benjamins...GOJET makes MESA look expensive. Delta will continue that shift of flying to the cheapest provider.

And ALPA will continue to say it's good for us.

I been out of the loop since I have left a DC, so forgive me for asking but is ComAir still around? Last I heard, they were slowly downsizing it and giving aircraft over Pinnacle, SkyWest and ASA...

As for the DCI movement, It would not surprise me to see SkyWest back east again and like wise with ASA coming back west and bringing Pinnacle over to the west once all the Mesba CRJs are moved over. Having worked both at Delta and Skywest - It's typically Delta having their way with the DCI flying where they want and when they want it. But keep this in mind with the slots, it will really come down to what airlines get what slots out of LGA and DCA. I know Allegiant is looking at the LGA slots along with Southwest - so if they get slots, Delta may end up keeping the LGA/DCA flights to mainline Delta, at least on long haul flying.

[QUOTE=skykid702;1082163]I been out of the loop since I have left a DC, so forgive me for asking but is ComAir still around? Last I heard, they were slowly downsizing it and giving aircraft over Pinnacle, SkyWest and ASA...[QUOTE]

Comair is still around. They're in the process of cutting the fleet down to about 44 jets... less than half of what they used to be. The majority of those planes are the CRJ7s and CRJ9s.

Delta subsidiary Comair slashing fleet, jobs - USATODAY.com

[QUOTE=STLaviator;1082265][QUOTE=skykid702;1082163]I been out of the loop since I have left a DC, so forgive me for asking but is ComAir still around? Last I heard, they were slowly downsizing it and giving aircraft over Pinnacle, SkyWest and ASA...Actually, almost exactly a quarter of what we had prior to the bankruptcy.

Kiss the 200's good bye. Delta wants nothing to do with them and they can't get rid of them fast enough.

obvi :eek:

Except that DALPA and DAL are working on replacing regional feed 200's with regional feed 900+s....

Way to state the obvious. But it won't happen fast, they've been removing them for 6years, and when they remove them they'll replace them with something larger. And when those aren't large enough. Dalpa will give DL the necessary scope to do so.

The thing that puzzels me the most is why would Delta bring Pinnacle out west? I can understand maybe for the MEM-SLC route but SkyWest is already in SLC....Is SkyWest becoming more of a burden to operate or are their costs becoming higher? It always seemed good ole' Jerry was a stickler for keeping cost low and know he would like to start doing at risk flying. It doesn't seem logical for Pinnacle to open a base in SLC, likewise with SkyWest in MEM or in ATL again or any kind of connection carrier being displaced but that is my thought but then again, airlines these days don't make sense.

Where are you getting the pinnacle out west thing?

Have you not been reading this thread, it doesn't have to make sense. That and Pinnacle has almost 50 900s.

That will probably change. Delta bid today pulls all main line planes out of MEM as a base. Work will be done by rj's.