I don't get it, you are implying Pinnacle is owned by Delta. Shrinking the heck out of 9E will kill it, smaller is not better and there is no endless piggy bank like Comair has with Delta. Can you explain what kind of debt 9E has?

Jump ship if you are senior to 1800 on the master seniority list, stay if under it. Ha.

The debt owed for the Mesaba purchase.

Ya I wasn't concerned until menkles specfically brought up the ISL as being a problem rather than 11-09. Alarm bells are ringing, I'd certainly try to void the ISL in bk and shutdown 9L if I was him, would save a fortune versus doing it ethically.

Does Delta's release of news of a good profit in 2011 have any bearing on the Pinnacle situation? I don't have the link because I am using my mobile, but the report is on atwonline.com.

Hi ShyGuy!

OUCH! Just trying to get a certain point across regarding the reality of the situation.

I can see the 9e 900s going away because skywest could pick up that flying with their spares, but I think Unitacon is hust playing hardball. I don't know why they would leave it up to a bk judge and I don't see them wanting to lose 30 planes. What would it take for someone else to fly the Q's? No one is hiring enough that already flies the dash. If it does happen I'd think it would take a while for them all to disapear.

They could disappear very quickly, it would take a while for someone else to begin operating them though.

Why is it then, United is in abig hurry to get the Q refitted for 1st class accommodations? To the point where they're paying to lease additional aircraft in order to speed up the process. Just doesn't make sense if Unicon, is looking to dump the Q. :-/

Pinnacle owns the 16 9E -900's, so Delta would have to acquire more airframes before the flying could be replaced. Granted they might be able to get them cheap from Pinnacle in BK, but that's not a given.

Pinnacle wouldn't gain ANYTHING by selling the 16 -900s to DL. You might say money, but that's a short term fix. Selling to another carrier, different story.

Isn't Pinnacle all about short term gains while ignoring long term consequences?

With previous management, I'd say yes. With these guys, I have a hard time believing Menke wants to put his own name on the line taking a second company through a bankruptcy.

I do not have multiple screen names. I post under ShyGuy only, and as you've noticed, I'm vocal about certain topics. I have no reason to have multiple screen names.

I wondered the same thing when I read about Delta's profit.

New message from Menkester. Crj 900 and Q400 payments for the next 3 months are deferred until April. Read it quickly and jumped on here so I may have said something wrong.

The lien holder on the airframes has agreed to defer for three months.

Trenary had no problem with it....;)

Nothing but liquidity.

Delta gets to play the RFP game to keep carrier costs in check with competition. Finance 101. We need liquidity and DL needs a pawn. Hello -900's now owned by DL and $100M in the PNCL coffer to run the operation before DL's contractual rate increase.

Chicken, meet egg.

The only problem with this is Delta and other mainline carriers have been moving away from buying aircraft for regional affiliates due to the negative effect it has on their balance sheets and debt ratio. The move lately has been to have the regional carriers finance the aircraft. The desire to control the aircraft is diminished by the increase in finance rates on aircraft due to the increased debt burden.

Ok....dumb question.....is that good or bad news? Or just news? Thanks.

Im guessing bad, anyone hear about the FAs getting WARN letters today?

Save money for 3 months then file BK and park the planes, I can see it now...

I look at it as a good thing. It seems to essentially be a 3 month interest free loan. While this may put off the inevitable, it means that the company's negotiations have at least achieved something with one party.

Hopefully Delta's positive earnings reports will give us more leverage in renegotiating our contracts with them.

Hahahahaa.... no.

Bad?? Hardly.

The company is now able to keep cash on hand for what their payments would have been on these aircraft.

The pay cut is a moot point for profitability and it is insulting that SM thinks we can't do the math to realize a 7% cut for 1 year would do nothing.

The real problem is the contracts we have. My brief experience with United has shown me that UAL values cheapness over anything else. The way the A terminal at IAD is run seems like they are willing to spend a dollar to save a penny. The Q is an efficient airplane that should easily make money. It would be in the best interest for UAL to modify the contract to keep Pinnacle around because it would cost a lot more money to start up a Q400 operation at another regional. However, I cannot imagine UAL being able to comprehend the idea of paying more money upfront to save money in the future. All it will take is GoJet to say they will buy Qs and underbid us.

It is a little depressing, but management always wins. They have more information than us and have been planning this for months before they ever said anything to us. They will get their pay cut one way or the other. It is not hard to find a judge who would grant a 25% pay cut and undo the ISL.

memo just went out eliminating the CRW-DCA routes for the Saab making boston all thats left of the usairways express flying for us

And with that, all outstation bases are dead. No more outstation group think anymore.

They won't even offically announce the base is closing because they don't want to run a displacement bid and incur more training costs.

But that's unpossible!

They said that nobody would negotiate with Pinnacle unless they could show that the pilots were willing to take cuts!

OR they could be hoping to cut our costs in bkrptcy thus making their lower rates more palatable.

As part of the 1113c motion, Pinnacle will need to show that pilot costs need to be reduced to maintain competitiveness. This was easy for Comair to prove, but it will be a tough argument if you are already middle of the pack.

In addition, the judge must maintain a "balance of the equities" which means in order to hit the pilots that hard, he will need to hit other work groups with equal* reductions. Will any rampers or schedulers come to work the next day after the company cuts their pay 25%?

*equal is not clearly defined, see the Comair 1113c motion for the Judge's explanation of these arguments and statutes.

When is the pilot vote on the 7% pay reduction?

Union backing it?

Man, you just sound miserable in everyone of your posts. Must be fun to fly with.

Stop being so miserable in life, you'll live longer.

I'm passed the point of no return. I no longer care if this company survives or not.

I am not bad to fly with though. I actually am in quite a good mood when i'm doing my job. What I really need to do is stop coming on these forums and reading about this industry. thats when it all goes down hill.

I'm surprised that they haven't gone back to their old jobs at popeye's yet.

Anyone have an estimate as to how much $$ the deferred payments will save them?

My guess is it is a negative number as the interest continues to acrue with no paying off of the loans.