Grassroots Efforts at DL for ACS and FAs, no personal attacks.

[Kev3188]

 

DL does not as a policy reduce pay if an employee is involuntarily moved from one dept. to another.

Which plays right into my earlier point.

The company specifically cited "cost pressures" as the reason. And yet using your example of no one losing pay or having to go to RR:

Payroll costs will stay exactly the same (assuming all go to 118/120/125 in SLC.

Facility costs stay the same.

GSE stays the same.

So where's the gain?

 

[WorldTraveler]

if flight activity is increasing - which I just cited - then costs for servicing mainline flights will have to increase. Note that DL is increasing the percentage of DL operated, DL employee worked flights but decreasing the number of RJ operated and staffed flights.

Thus, the mainline costs would have had to increase which allows the cargo personnel to fill those roles.

and cargo at SLC is probably a lot more inbound focused vs. outbound cargo which might well make it much less economical to use mainline employees.

and further, as much as you and others might want to avoid admitting, health care costs continue to increase and ObamaCare only increases the requirements on large employers like DL to provide health care coverage. Statistics show that US companies are creating far fewer full-time benefitted positions than part-time and non-benefitted jobs. When DL looks at the cost of maintaining full-time employees esp. compared to companies like UA which has outsourced large numbers of cargo stations, it is hard for DL to keep mainline employees in positions that can be outsourced.

 

[737823]

WT UA hasn't outosurced large numbers of cargo stations, they have outosurced ALL. UA lost cargo in the early-mid 2000s, while CO had cargo in-house until July 2012. District Lodge 141 gave this work away outside negotiations in a letter of agreement. Basically they didn't want sCO to have things sUA didn't and rather than working to bring it back in house at sUA they took it away from everyone. Tim Nelson posted the LOA in the 2012 fleet service thread. Currently IAM-represented fleet service personnel only handle cargo to load it directly on the flight-vendors handle warehousing, receiving, etc which were formerly performed in house.

AA retained cargo at the five hubs with TWU represented personnel. Before the bankruptcy there were approximately 25 cargo stations. USAIR does not have cargo, although like UA they do load the cargo onto the flight.

Josh

 

[Kev3188]

 

if flight activity is increasing - which I just cited - then costs for servicing mainline flights will have to increase. Note that DL is increasing the percentage of DL operated, DL employee worked flights but decreasing the number of RJ operated and staffed flights.

This assumes that SLC is short staffed- or at best getting by with the current flight activity. I'm not sure that's the case.

and further, as much as you and others might want to avoid admitting, health care costs continue to increase and ObamaCare only increases the requirements on large employers like DL to provide health care coverage.

Complete red herring. Per the company, those affected will all still have jobs. You state that will mean no loss in status. Therefore, if they have coverage now, they'll have it on 12/1, with no change to either employee or employer-borne costs.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Kevin,

DL is increasing MAINLINE capacity across its system by more than 5% while reducing regional carrier capacity by 2% and has been doing it all year long.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/delta-reports-financial-operating-performance-130500378.html

DL has also done the same thing for the past several years. Even the RJ capacity that is being added is coming with more efficient, larger aircraft that have lower CASMs.

DL is doing EXACTLY what WN is doing compared to FL's strategy which is to upgauge flights in order to increase efficiency and lower costs. the only difference is that DL is doing it between regional and mainline while WN only has the mainline component to work with. What DL and WN do share is a willingness to acquire used aircraft because of the lower capital costs involved. AA and UA are getting rid of some small RJs and replacing them with large RJS but they are acquiring all of their aircraft - RJ or mainline - as new and in AA's case, the addition of the 319 is actually downsizing many flights. Larger aircraft generally mean greater efficiency and lower CASM. You can tell me the normal staffing between a 717 and 739ER or 753 but I can assure you that DL like WN is using larger aircraft to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

but the entire system is increasing, particularly in terms of the number of mainline flights - which means more staffing.

It is not a red herring to note that SLC just had to be PROPERLY staffed for additional flights to create additional jobs for DL people.

the INCREMENTAL revenue for DL by adding one more mainline flight is far greater than the incremental costs of staffing that flight.

and Josh's point is valid... if UA has no in-house cargo personnel, DL has to staff its cargo operation based on industry standard costs. IF UA now has far lower cargo costs because of outsourcing then DL's costs get shifted form cargo to ramp personnel.

look at the big picture of what is going on at the company overall including at SLC and it will make sense.

 

[robbedagain]

Josh US has cargo PHL BOS CLT PIT PHX

 

[WorldTraveler]

based on traffic reports to date, AA is #3 of the big 3 in cargo while UA is #1 but the difference between AA, DL, and UA is less than a couple percent.

You can't argue against what competitors are doing in order to remain cost competitive given that UA has decided to cut all of its own personnel from cargo.

 

[737823]

Josh US has cargo PHL BOS CLT PIT PHX

Robbed I think you are referring to loading the cargo on to the plane not receiving, warehousing, etc like AA TWU does at DFW/JFK/LAXMIA/ORD. Besides Tim and Roa keep going off on cargo vs catering vs small stations.

Josh

 

[WorldTraveler]

Kev,
as to the part about DL increasing the size of its mainline domestic fleet, pilots are being told that DL will retain more 757s than originally planned and DL is looking at increasing the size of aircraft that DL use in the western US above what was previously planned in order to increase the number of passengers that can be handled thru LAX and SEA where facilities are constrained - and SEA is working with DL to add more than the 4 gates which DL will already get next year.
Further, marketing wanted to grow the mainline operation faster than happened this summer but it didn't happen because mktg requested the increases too late for flight ops to staff. The expectation is also that JFK and SEA will be the focal points for DL's int'l growth over the next few years with the arrival of new aircraft. The relatively minor tweaks that DL is making in other cities are more than offset by growth elsewhere.


btw, pilots have also been told that DL profit sharing for all employees should finish the year between $900-950 million which would support my estimates that profit sharing for DL employees could surpass 12% for all of 2014 and that you will get the 2nd part of your 2014 profit sharing on Valentine's Day 2015 that will be only a little smaller than what you got this year.


profitable growth is always an employees best friend. DL is providing it in spades.

 

[Kev3188]

 

Kevin,

DL is increasing MAINLINE capacity across its system by more than 5% while reducing regional carrier capacity by 2% and has been doing it all year long.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/delta-reports-financial-operating-performance-130500378.html

Great. Still not directly relevant to SLC staffing since M/L already handles most all DCI there. You are also still assume that they're either short or at best adequately staffed. What if they're "fat?"

 

[Kev3188]

 

Kev,
as to the part about DL increasing the size of its mainline domestic fleet, pilots are being told that DL will retain more 757s than originally planned and DL is looking at increasing the size of aircraft that DL use in the western US above what was previously planned in order to increase the number of passengers that can be handled thru LAX and SEA where facilities are constrained - and SEA is working with DL to add more than the 4 gates which DL will already get next year.

Cool story. Unfortunately, that doesn't affect the per gate staffing model.

 

[WorldTraveler]

are you sure about that? I thought SkyWest did RJ BW ground handling in SLC? I thought MSP, DTW, and SLC were the 3 hubs where DL mainline does not do RJ ground handling while they do at ATL, JFK, LGA (non Shuttle), CVG, and LAX. correct me if I am wrong.

even so, DL is adding MORE flights than what existed last year ON TOP OF the increase in gauge so DL employees would benefit EVEN IF moving flights from RJ oeprators to DL doesn't change who works them. the number of flights and employees needed are both increasing.

Cool story. Unfortunately, that doesn't affect the per gate staffing model.

are you telling me that even in hub operations, DL uses the same number of employees to staff an RJ gate as they do a 739ER or 757? somehow I doubt it even if that is what they do in a spoke city where a crew might see a mixture of RJs and mainline on the same gate.

 

[robbedagain]

Josh pmus has cargo facilities at the airports i listed

 

[737823]

The facilities may exist but they are staffed by vendors.

Josh

 

[Kev3188]

Did you log onto Wings to check that out?