Yeah, I carried a jumpseater from PNS to ATL a few years ago who was using us as his backup flight after he couldn't get on a 50 seat CRJ for weight restrictions. It was a beautiful, VFR day all over the Southeast, including both ATL and PNS.

Wow. Makes me wonder how many paying passengers we're needlessly leaving behind on a daily basis!

Another issue with the type was the flaps tending to fail extended on missed approaches due to contaminants fouling the torque drive. The FAA was requiring dispatch using fuel burns to the alternate with the flaps down. Wonder how all that worked out? Alternate fuel figured at flaps 40 would be a bunch or weight on a landing weight limited airplane.

I had also hear our scope seat restrictions worked out well from management's perspective because it made the jet less weight limited.

I wonder the same thing myself... I have never really understood how we leave pax behind on an oversold flight that isn't weight restricted. Agent will tell us "oh we've got 53 people trying to get on this flight", and we'll end up leaving with 44... where did the other 9 people go?

A possible sign that the DAL might be hiring this year?
FltOps.com: Pilot Job Fairs

"Delta Air Lines
- Delta requests to meet a maximum of 275 pilots who meet its minimum qualifications, including the four-year college degree. Pilots must be active on airlineapps.com.
Rep: Capt. Arnie Kraby, Manager - Pilot Selection
Rep: Brian Bolt, Manager of Fleet Common Programs
Rep: Capt. Greg Mazyck & F/O Chris Jones
Rep: Beth Poole, Manager – Flying Operations
Rep: Dianna Carter, Coordinator - Flying Operations

Simple math ...
+ nine * $400 "Delta Dollars" (hit to future revenue)
+ vouchers
+ maybe a hotel room
+ cost of revenue standby handling and potential for multi day snowball effect
--------------
Costs the regional vendor does not pay

FedEx kept the meet & greets going for a while despite the lack of hiring plans. Those tend to be the first called when things start back up.

It resulted in a limitation that prohibited the extension of the flaps unless the wx was above approach minimums (not just vis) OR you had enough gas to shoot the approach, GA, and divert with the flaps fully extended and land with 1500lbs in gas.

Also if you needed a t/o alternate a "flap alternate" must also be designated that allowed a diversion with the flaps stuck at T/O setting and land with at least 1500lbs fuel.

It really was not a big problem other than keeping it straight when you needed one.

Thanks for those links, Columbia. I wonder why it has taken so long to get these winglets to market? If they work they seem like a game changer for all A320 operators. If they work that well for a 321, I can only imagine what they'd do for a A319!

No, never, not even close. Gate agents will say anything to get a flight out on time. An alternate usually only affected your ability to take a JS up front (say, GSO-ATL), and I can't remember ever kicking off more than one or two from the back because of an alternate. The longer flights actually made it easier to deal with because fuel burn increased max landing weight. Lately, we're underweight because no one wants to check a bag any more, and it makes us even more nose-heavy. Now, if the only valid Alternate was PIT...

At Comair, we still do the w&b ourselves, which can be a plus. I'm not sure how savvy they can get when it's done via ACARS.