....gj....

Richard has said the consolidation phase is not over yet. I think we will see more mergers before we see any organic growth. Organic growth is expensive and then you have to compete, putting new seats into a market, driving down yields.

He would much rather buy the competitor and dominate the market with less competition, and higher yields. Just look at the slot swap and NWA merger and Alaska code share and all the J/V's, rather than buying new airplanes for organic growth. That ship has sailed and rightfully so. There is no money in competition.

Man ATL's domestic terminals are a but of a joke, but D is a disaster.

Now that Christmas is over, and the credit card is... smoking... does anyone know when the next bid will be out?


Ed. Note: Unacceptable answers are as follows:

1. 4 to 6 weeks.

2. LAX or ANC 73NA is available, if you work for Alaska.

3. NYC E170A is available, if you work for """.

3.5 When we get leather jackets and ascots.

4. My friend in mgmt. says look for "The Mother Of All Bids" sometime this summer.

5. It is hopeless, Emirates will conquer all, update your displacement prefs.

Cheers and Happy New Year!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyallnite

Now that Christmas is over, and the credit card is... smoking... does anyone know when the next bid will be out?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Crew Resources January 2012 Update:

THE NEXT AE

We expect to post another AE in the spring of 2012. This AE will continue to draw down the DC9’s, with all
aircraft out of service by Dec 2012, and make final adjustments for the 2012 summer schedule. We may also
add additional 737 crews in anticipation of taking our first 737-900 deliveries in 2013. We have not analyzed
the need for additional 737 bases at this time and do not anticipate conducting the analysis for at least another
6 months when we have a better direction from Network of how they intend to use the new aircraft.

UPDATE YOUR AE BIDS

As shown in the November 2011 AE, categories can be quickly opened and closed with fairly short notice.
While our goal in Crew Resources is to give as much notice as possible, as we did with the closing of the
MEM-DC9 categories, we sometimes have to make rapid decisions with little time to communicate to the pilot

group. We recommend regularly updating your bids and to bid what you want and want what you bid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Given what a small bid does I doubt we'd ever have a MOAB. You know what would be smart? That NWA system for bidding. Yeah, I said it.

GASP!

No you diin'

Another really nice thing about the NWA process was you would know when you were going to training...... This allowed a pilot to decide what was most important, a bid now, vacation, holidays, etc.

GSS airplanes are not flown by BA line pilots. They are flown by their own pilots who are typically retired BA pilots or other former -400 pilots on a much lower scale. I've flown with some at CX. This is entirely common in the rest of the world outside of the US. Another good example is the CX freighters....when this started up it was a completely separate pilot group on much lower pay....most eventually integrated but thats an entirely different story for another day. It is similar to the US regional idea just with large airplanes.

Ahh, I knew I missed one in there...

On a mostly unrelated topic, does anyone think that the new rest regs will result in more bases, possibly outstation basing to some extent? The lack of flexibility with the new hard time limits could result in some operational issues, cancelled flights and the like for domestic ops in particular if they can't get a reserve pilot in position to cover a timed out crew, say in San Francisco or Dallas or something. It would seem like having the crew time out in a hub rather than in an outstation would be a better thing.

Thanks for posting the completely vague crew resources update, I see they are still the last to know anything