Kev3188
Veteran
Don't worry; the new "speedlines" for the Mad Dogs will make up for that...
(sarcasm, of course)
(sarcasm, of course)
A330 Lie Flat Mods
- Thread starter 737823
- Start date
Glenn Quagmire
Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2012
- Messages
- 4,809
- Reaction score
- 4,343
Too bad that sequestration is going to delay the ADS-B program and new RNAV procedures. The cutting of the FAA budget across the board has had the effect of cutting/slowing the NEXGEN programs.
The way the sequester law was written, it does not allow the funding to be re-programmed to support the NEXGEN and accelerate the decommissioning of old obsolete VOR's. Instead the cuts must be divided equally among the new and old technology.
I find it completely unfreakingbelievable that a political tiff between Democrats and Republicans is delaying the rollout of much more efficient and safer airway navigation procedures. Even worse that the silly sequester law was written in such a way as to prevent any flexibility by agency heads to determine where cuts would be made. Idiots.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2003
- Messages
- 21,709
- Reaction score
- 10,662
Dawg,
It is pretty obvious that you want to continue to hold onto what happened in BK and use that as the basis for predicting what will happen with your career from now on.
You do realize that it has been 12 years since 9/11, a decade since the first legacy airline BKs since 9/11, 8 years since DL entered BK, 6 years since DL exited BK, and 5 years since DL merged w/ NW (all rounded to the current calendar year)?
At what point do you plan to accept that DL is running its business the way it intends to, including WRT compensation and benefit policies for its employees?
Since you mention UA and its vacation policy on a repeated basis, perhaps you should consider a few things:
- UA has yet to demonstrate its financial viability on a long-term basis since its merger with CO. UA’s costs have increased faster than revenues, as I expected it will, and the same issue that AA/US faces unless it can significantly improve revenue to account for the increased costs that are part of the price with labor as part of a merger. DL has dramatically increased revenue, esp. in NYC and to/from Asia. As much as labor might want to expect management to figure out how to pay labor what labor expects, there has to be a real economic basis for the merger. UA has yet to demonstrate the economic basis for its merger; DL has done it well.
- UA’s costs are in the second wave of increases post-merger as a result of the labor cost increases agreed to by the company to unify the pilot contract. While the prospect of big pay raises across the board for UA employees, esp. pilots sounds good, remember what happened in the summer of 2000 when UA agreed to massive pay increases only to end up taking them back and more in BK. Labor might like big pay raises but if the company cannot demonstrate that it can generate revenue sufficient to cover those new costs, the pay raises will be taken back at some point. The 2000s taught us that the legacy airlines must learn to live within their revenues or the employees will pay.
- UA does indeed offer topped out mechanics and other employees higher vacation rates, but DL’s philosophy is clearly that it will not continue to increase the pay of the highest paid employees at the expense of others. In case you missed it, DL employees earned pay raises and profit sharing in the past two years that have far exceeded what UA employees as a group have earned. UA’s compensation policy is targeted at increasing compensation for the highest paid employees at the expense of the majority.
- UA made it clear in its joint contract proposal with its ramp employees that it wants to outsource all but the largest cities; it offered no protections to employees in many cities and it offered no pay raises to the group as a whole (if I read the document correctly).
- UA’s traffic reports show that UA is not going to protect the jobs of UA employees; capacity will be added to regional carriers as fast as it is to mainline employees – or reduced at both on an equal basis. DL’s strategy has clearly been to increase flying for DL mainline employees, or at the very least protect DL mainline employee jobs while taking necessary reductions due to decreased demand from Delta Connection carriers.
- And, as much as you want to paint the picture otherwise, DL employs far more mechanics than UA. And the vast majority of DL mechanics are quite happy to have a job working on aircraft from other sources as well. DL’s rate of outsourcing even without the insourcing that DL does is lower than at UA. Add in that there are thousands of DL mechanics and related positions who have jobs because DL insources work which other airlines do not do, and DL has created more maintenance jobs than other airlines. DL could easily have chosen to not replace jobs which NW cut and instead outsource those jobs but DL has created new DL jobs for both DL work and for insourced work.
From the perspective of a topped-out mechanic who remains focused on the world before 2000, I’m sure you will be disappointed with DL until the day you die. I’d like to have back the hundreds of thousands of dollars in value in my house and my investments that was lost in the past decade, but that isn’t going to happen. I’d like to have a world where security isn’t near the PITA that it is now, but that world is one for the history books. The vast majority of the world realizes time has moved forward and it hasn’t necessarily been a good thing. When put within the perspective of how DL is doing compared with other airlines, including UA, most people and the stock market as a whole recognize that DL has created a better business than its legacy carrier competitors and has shared those successes with its employees.
No, I am not going to tell you that you should leave but I do really wonder why you have bothered to stay as long as you have.
and when you look at what our "leaders" in Washington are doing, you can't realistically be optimistic about the future, esp. when looking across the Atlantic at the economic disaster that continues to unfold there. For Americans and America business, the goal clearly has to be to make the best of a really bad situation.
It is pretty obvious that you want to continue to hold onto what happened in BK and use that as the basis for predicting what will happen with your career from now on.
You do realize that it has been 12 years since 9/11, a decade since the first legacy airline BKs since 9/11, 8 years since DL entered BK, 6 years since DL exited BK, and 5 years since DL merged w/ NW (all rounded to the current calendar year)?
At what point do you plan to accept that DL is running its business the way it intends to, including WRT compensation and benefit policies for its employees?
Since you mention UA and its vacation policy on a repeated basis, perhaps you should consider a few things:
- UA has yet to demonstrate its financial viability on a long-term basis since its merger with CO. UA’s costs have increased faster than revenues, as I expected it will, and the same issue that AA/US faces unless it can significantly improve revenue to account for the increased costs that are part of the price with labor as part of a merger. DL has dramatically increased revenue, esp. in NYC and to/from Asia. As much as labor might want to expect management to figure out how to pay labor what labor expects, there has to be a real economic basis for the merger. UA has yet to demonstrate the economic basis for its merger; DL has done it well.
- UA’s costs are in the second wave of increases post-merger as a result of the labor cost increases agreed to by the company to unify the pilot contract. While the prospect of big pay raises across the board for UA employees, esp. pilots sounds good, remember what happened in the summer of 2000 when UA agreed to massive pay increases only to end up taking them back and more in BK. Labor might like big pay raises but if the company cannot demonstrate that it can generate revenue sufficient to cover those new costs, the pay raises will be taken back at some point. The 2000s taught us that the legacy airlines must learn to live within their revenues or the employees will pay.
- UA does indeed offer topped out mechanics and other employees higher vacation rates, but DL’s philosophy is clearly that it will not continue to increase the pay of the highest paid employees at the expense of others. In case you missed it, DL employees earned pay raises and profit sharing in the past two years that have far exceeded what UA employees as a group have earned. UA’s compensation policy is targeted at increasing compensation for the highest paid employees at the expense of the majority.
- UA made it clear in its joint contract proposal with its ramp employees that it wants to outsource all but the largest cities; it offered no protections to employees in many cities and it offered no pay raises to the group as a whole (if I read the document correctly).
- UA’s traffic reports show that UA is not going to protect the jobs of UA employees; capacity will be added to regional carriers as fast as it is to mainline employees – or reduced at both on an equal basis. DL’s strategy has clearly been to increase flying for DL mainline employees, or at the very least protect DL mainline employee jobs while taking necessary reductions due to decreased demand from Delta Connection carriers.
- And, as much as you want to paint the picture otherwise, DL employs far more mechanics than UA. And the vast majority of DL mechanics are quite happy to have a job working on aircraft from other sources as well. DL’s rate of outsourcing even without the insourcing that DL does is lower than at UA. Add in that there are thousands of DL mechanics and related positions who have jobs because DL insources work which other airlines do not do, and DL has created more maintenance jobs than other airlines. DL could easily have chosen to not replace jobs which NW cut and instead outsource those jobs but DL has created new DL jobs for both DL work and for insourced work.
From the perspective of a topped-out mechanic who remains focused on the world before 2000, I’m sure you will be disappointed with DL until the day you die. I’d like to have back the hundreds of thousands of dollars in value in my house and my investments that was lost in the past decade, but that isn’t going to happen. I’d like to have a world where security isn’t near the PITA that it is now, but that world is one for the history books. The vast majority of the world realizes time has moved forward and it hasn’t necessarily been a good thing. When put within the perspective of how DL is doing compared with other airlines, including UA, most people and the stock market as a whole recognize that DL has created a better business than its legacy carrier competitors and has shared those successes with its employees.
No, I am not going to tell you that you should leave but I do really wonder why you have bothered to stay as long as you have.
and when you look at what our "leaders" in Washington are doing, you can't realistically be optimistic about the future, esp. when looking across the Atlantic at the economic disaster that continues to unfold there. For Americans and America business, the goal clearly has to be to make the best of a really bad situation.
Glenn Quagmire
Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2012
- Messages
- 4,809
- Reaction score
- 4,343
I do too. I have written all my "representatives" and promptly received form letters declaring whose fault it was.
Back on topic; I think it is great that the airlines are working together with the FAA and vendors to improve our National Airspace System.
xUT
Veteran
Obama signs $63B FAA funding bill into law
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/aviation/210649-obama-signs-63b-faa-funding-bill-into-law#ixzz2PXMrpLAG
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
OOPS... 😛
[background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]
By Keith Laing - 02/14/12 04:59 PM ET
[/background]
By Keith Laing - 02/14/12 04:59 PM ET
[/background]
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/aviation/210649-obama-signs-63b-faa-funding-bill-into-law#ixzz2PXMrpLAG
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
OOPS... 😛
Glenn Quagmire
Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2012
- Messages
- 4,809
- Reaction score
- 4,343
The sequester trumped that.
Oops is correct. Just when there was stability in funding, they did the across the board, indiscriminate cuts.
http://secondtonone.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FINAL-Econsult-Report.pdf
Oops is correct. Just when there was stability in funding, they did the across the board, indiscriminate cuts.
http://secondtonone.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FINAL-Econsult-Report.pdf
topDawg
Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2010
- Messages
- 2,957
- Reaction score
- 2,298
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2003
- Messages
- 21,709
- Reaction score
- 10,662
Thanks for your reply, Dawg.
I don’t doubt for a minute that you and other in-house DL mechanics find work that is done wrong by contractors and have to fix it, but don’t you record the work you do by the job so that someone really is capable of tracking what the cost of fixing outsourced work? I am quite certain there are people over on the side of the runway who know how much it costs and still find the cost is lower – otherwise they would bring the work home. You do recall that DL has closed several foreign outsourced res offices because they didn’t provide service and value that DL expected? DL is capable of realizing when outsourcing doesn’t work.
I too would love to see more work done in-house but if it isn’t economical using existing facilities, I have a hard time believing that it will be more economical if DL opened up new maintenance bases – or reopened ones that have been closed, including buying new tooling, etc. Is it true that DL simply doesn’t have the space in its maintenance operation to bring in large amounts of work that is currently outsourced.
Who does V2500 overhauls for DL now and is it possible DL could pursue that work now that the size of DL’s fleet is large enough to justify doing that type? DL obviously doesn’t do all engine overhauls but they do a lot of types and what can be brought inhouse results in the ability to bring in work from other carriers.
I don’t expect that mechanics will ever understand the concept of having a partnership with AeroMexico to do maintenance than that pilots will ever accept that DL pilots will accept that a codeshare relationship with AS is beneficial to DL pilots – but there is clearly a benefit that both sides get and DL is very keen to make sure that the partnership is kept in balance. You do realize that DL has added 25% more capacity into SEA this summer and a proportional amount of that is on domestic routes that AS also flies? As long as DL can make money flying its own planes thru SEA or makes money from Tech Ops insourcing driven by the same reason that DL has a balance of the best maintenance costs and capabilities in the US airline industry, you and plenty of other mechanics will remain employed at DL. If DL quits insourcing and starts closing down key shops in ATL, then let me know and I’ll get real worried with you about your future.
As for the OTS factor for aircraft, part of DL’s fleet strategy is to have more older aircraft on which they will have to do overhaul on rather than spending tens of billions of dollars on newer aircraft and then have to push those planes to the limit in order to justify the cost of acquiring them. Having an older fleet including outsourcing does require more OTS time, but if the option is to buy new aircraft or to have to do all work inhouse, then the costs will go up and you will see that DL will choose to do what other carriers are doing – which is exchange labor uncertainty w/ unionized workforces for investments in expensive new aircraft. The simple fact is that DL is content enough w/ its labor position that it will rely on having more work done by its own people – mainline vs. connection carrier flying, inhouse vs outsourced maintenance because it is comfortable w/ where its labor situation will be in a couple years. Other airlines simply can’t say that and thus outsource more work. Look at what is happening at AA in maintenance. Notice also that UA is cutting mainline capacity faster than it is cutting its regional carriers.
As for labor costs, it is often said that the airline industry is only as smart as the dumbest competitor and the same is true about labor. DL may have given you pay raises and industry-leading profit sharing but what have your peers received? It is precisely because DL is not going to keep paying well above the market that you aren’t going to continue to receive pay raises at the same levels you have for the past several years. You need only look at WN to see their employees are hitting the limit of what the company is willing to pay as well. Pushing the glass ceiling is not easy for anyone… but you have to know when you are getting close and figure your own personal compensation strategy - move into mgmt, do side work, or whatever in order to keep pushing your salary up.
As for the 5th and 6th weeks and other benefits of the most senior parts of DL’s workforce, DL has made it abundantly clear that it is not going to continue to provide incentives for the most senior workers to stay at the company. Health care costs have now replaced pension costs as the biggest the cost threat for companies with senior workers. DL is not going to discriminate against senior workers but it is not going to stop offering early outs and other incentives to get senior employees to leave. And they aren’t going to incentive senior workers to stay. That is just the reality of the world in which we live and DL is doing what other companies elsewhere in America are doing; the heavily unionized airline industry stands as an exception to many things and other carriers are being forced to bear costs which companies in other industries are not.
There is a point when you have to take your campaign to the political arena in order to affect the change you want to see or else recognize that DL is acting rationally within the environment it faces while other airlines are not because of union limitations.
A word about revenue-- The biggest reason why DL is succeeding compared to its peers is because it knows how to compete with all types of carriers and is able to win over revenue which other carriers cannot gain and do it all sensibly. I just watched Branson’s (Sir Richard) with CNBC about Virgin America’s entrance into the EWR market. Of course he is happy to publicly note that UA has increased frequencies from 8 to 14 on EWR-LAX in an attempt to drive VX out of the market. However, he calculates that UA’s added capacity plus reduced fares to match VX are costing it $150 million. And remember that UA is trying to settle labor contracts and is watching its costs go up in the process. EWR and IAH have long been protected hubs compared to JFK or ATL and what DL’s competitors have to overcome will have enormous implications on your future – assuming you are planning on sticking around for more than a few more years. So, while many airline employees always want to focus on the pay/benefit comparisons, they rarely talk about the competitive aspects of the industry because it is complex and usually the demands for higher pay and benefits fall apart under the scrutiny that the employees are in reality one part of the equation.
Finally, airline employees never talk about the cuts that investors made as part of the BK filings that all of the legacy carriers, including DL, did. Those common stockholders were wiped out. Unsecured debtholders were wiped out - and DL had about $4B of unsecured debt when it filed. Even though many secured debtholders received stock in the new DL, they didn’t receive anywhere close to what they could have if the airlines have not filed for BK. Lending costs are still higher for airlines as a result. Airline stocks are considered lower grade. DL is the first legacy airline in a long time that is close to breaking the paradigm of its network peers and becoming a viable, long-term business. Others may succeed as well. But as much as you as an employee want to talk about how you should be compensated well, remember that DL and most other US airlines still are viewed as second tier investments which results in higher costs for the company.
I am not saying you should shut up or just accept life as it is.
I am saying that you should be very aware about the environment in which you work and realize that DL is doing a far better job of running its business and DL employees are indeed faring far better than most of your network airline peers, even if you want to cite your own personal situation which is clearly an exception.
I truly do hope you succeed and obtain what you want in your job… but I can absolutely assure you that DL is not going to cut its own future in order to give you what you want at the expense of other employees or other stakeholders, esp. the investors which DL needs just as much as any other stakeholder in order to ensure a viable future for the company.
I don’t doubt for a minute that you and other in-house DL mechanics find work that is done wrong by contractors and have to fix it, but don’t you record the work you do by the job so that someone really is capable of tracking what the cost of fixing outsourced work? I am quite certain there are people over on the side of the runway who know how much it costs and still find the cost is lower – otherwise they would bring the work home. You do recall that DL has closed several foreign outsourced res offices because they didn’t provide service and value that DL expected? DL is capable of realizing when outsourcing doesn’t work.
I too would love to see more work done in-house but if it isn’t economical using existing facilities, I have a hard time believing that it will be more economical if DL opened up new maintenance bases – or reopened ones that have been closed, including buying new tooling, etc. Is it true that DL simply doesn’t have the space in its maintenance operation to bring in large amounts of work that is currently outsourced.
Who does V2500 overhauls for DL now and is it possible DL could pursue that work now that the size of DL’s fleet is large enough to justify doing that type? DL obviously doesn’t do all engine overhauls but they do a lot of types and what can be brought inhouse results in the ability to bring in work from other carriers.
I don’t expect that mechanics will ever understand the concept of having a partnership with AeroMexico to do maintenance than that pilots will ever accept that DL pilots will accept that a codeshare relationship with AS is beneficial to DL pilots – but there is clearly a benefit that both sides get and DL is very keen to make sure that the partnership is kept in balance. You do realize that DL has added 25% more capacity into SEA this summer and a proportional amount of that is on domestic routes that AS also flies? As long as DL can make money flying its own planes thru SEA or makes money from Tech Ops insourcing driven by the same reason that DL has a balance of the best maintenance costs and capabilities in the US airline industry, you and plenty of other mechanics will remain employed at DL. If DL quits insourcing and starts closing down key shops in ATL, then let me know and I’ll get real worried with you about your future.
As for the OTS factor for aircraft, part of DL’s fleet strategy is to have more older aircraft on which they will have to do overhaul on rather than spending tens of billions of dollars on newer aircraft and then have to push those planes to the limit in order to justify the cost of acquiring them. Having an older fleet including outsourcing does require more OTS time, but if the option is to buy new aircraft or to have to do all work inhouse, then the costs will go up and you will see that DL will choose to do what other carriers are doing – which is exchange labor uncertainty w/ unionized workforces for investments in expensive new aircraft. The simple fact is that DL is content enough w/ its labor position that it will rely on having more work done by its own people – mainline vs. connection carrier flying, inhouse vs outsourced maintenance because it is comfortable w/ where its labor situation will be in a couple years. Other airlines simply can’t say that and thus outsource more work. Look at what is happening at AA in maintenance. Notice also that UA is cutting mainline capacity faster than it is cutting its regional carriers.
As for labor costs, it is often said that the airline industry is only as smart as the dumbest competitor and the same is true about labor. DL may have given you pay raises and industry-leading profit sharing but what have your peers received? It is precisely because DL is not going to keep paying well above the market that you aren’t going to continue to receive pay raises at the same levels you have for the past several years. You need only look at WN to see their employees are hitting the limit of what the company is willing to pay as well. Pushing the glass ceiling is not easy for anyone… but you have to know when you are getting close and figure your own personal compensation strategy - move into mgmt, do side work, or whatever in order to keep pushing your salary up.
As for the 5th and 6th weeks and other benefits of the most senior parts of DL’s workforce, DL has made it abundantly clear that it is not going to continue to provide incentives for the most senior workers to stay at the company. Health care costs have now replaced pension costs as the biggest the cost threat for companies with senior workers. DL is not going to discriminate against senior workers but it is not going to stop offering early outs and other incentives to get senior employees to leave. And they aren’t going to incentive senior workers to stay. That is just the reality of the world in which we live and DL is doing what other companies elsewhere in America are doing; the heavily unionized airline industry stands as an exception to many things and other carriers are being forced to bear costs which companies in other industries are not.
There is a point when you have to take your campaign to the political arena in order to affect the change you want to see or else recognize that DL is acting rationally within the environment it faces while other airlines are not because of union limitations.
A word about revenue-- The biggest reason why DL is succeeding compared to its peers is because it knows how to compete with all types of carriers and is able to win over revenue which other carriers cannot gain and do it all sensibly. I just watched Branson’s (Sir Richard) with CNBC about Virgin America’s entrance into the EWR market. Of course he is happy to publicly note that UA has increased frequencies from 8 to 14 on EWR-LAX in an attempt to drive VX out of the market. However, he calculates that UA’s added capacity plus reduced fares to match VX are costing it $150 million. And remember that UA is trying to settle labor contracts and is watching its costs go up in the process. EWR and IAH have long been protected hubs compared to JFK or ATL and what DL’s competitors have to overcome will have enormous implications on your future – assuming you are planning on sticking around for more than a few more years. So, while many airline employees always want to focus on the pay/benefit comparisons, they rarely talk about the competitive aspects of the industry because it is complex and usually the demands for higher pay and benefits fall apart under the scrutiny that the employees are in reality one part of the equation.
Finally, airline employees never talk about the cuts that investors made as part of the BK filings that all of the legacy carriers, including DL, did. Those common stockholders were wiped out. Unsecured debtholders were wiped out - and DL had about $4B of unsecured debt when it filed. Even though many secured debtholders received stock in the new DL, they didn’t receive anywhere close to what they could have if the airlines have not filed for BK. Lending costs are still higher for airlines as a result. Airline stocks are considered lower grade. DL is the first legacy airline in a long time that is close to breaking the paradigm of its network peers and becoming a viable, long-term business. Others may succeed as well. But as much as you as an employee want to talk about how you should be compensated well, remember that DL and most other US airlines still are viewed as second tier investments which results in higher costs for the company.
I am not saying you should shut up or just accept life as it is.
I am saying that you should be very aware about the environment in which you work and realize that DL is doing a far better job of running its business and DL employees are indeed faring far better than most of your network airline peers, even if you want to cite your own personal situation which is clearly an exception.
I truly do hope you succeed and obtain what you want in your job… but I can absolutely assure you that DL is not going to cut its own future in order to give you what you want at the expense of other employees or other stakeholders, esp. the investors which DL needs just as much as any other stakeholder in order to ensure a viable future for the company.
topDawg
Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2010
- Messages
- 2,957
- Reaction score
- 2,298
will fly ATL-DTW-AMS as its first trip.
Kev3188
Veteran
"Internally the new code used to designate the modified ships will be 3L3 for the -300 and 3L2 for the -200."
Hey, what's another couple of sub fleet codes among friends?
Hey, what's another couple of sub fleet codes among friends?
