AA & DL Further Reduce Capacity; DL No New Planes

LAXintl · Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:57 pm

Due continued market weakness both American Airlines and Delta today announced additional capacity cuts in the 4th quarter and for 2012.

AA wil shave off an additiona half precent in Q4 capacity primarily through day off week and Saturday cancellations, while Delta see its total Q4 capacity down 4-5%, and now expects 2012 capacity to be down 2-3 % compared to 2011.

Also today Delta President Ed Bastion announced at an analyst conference that the carrier would not be placing any new aircraft orders "in the next couple of years".
I guess so much for the expectation of maybe a C-Series, or something smaller than the previous 737-900 order to replace the MD-88 fleet.

Stories:

American Airlines to trim 4Q flights
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Americ...im-4Q-apf-2959202243.html?x=0&.v=2

Delta to cut 2012 flying by 2-3 percent
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Delta-...ing-by-apf-571430012.html?x=0&.v=1

[Edited 2011-09-13 12:07:02]

SASMD82 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:03 pm

Besides Southwest, Virgin and JetBlue, are there any airlines growing in North America? Without mergers or whatsoever.

apodino · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:05 pm

Quoting SASMD82 (Reply 1):
Besides Southwest, Virgin and JetBlue, are there any airlines growing in North America? Without mergers or whatsoever.

Allegiant maybe?

It's no shock with AA....they are going to need something dramatic to save them in a few months without having to go Chapter 11.

As far as DL goes, could the cuts signal the complete demise of CVG and MEM?

QANTAS747-438 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:06 pm

Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):
Also today Delta President Ed Bastion announced at an analyst conference that the carrier would not be placing any new aircraft orders "in the next couple of years".

No "new orders". How does that play into the rumor of WN selling its 717s to DL? They'd be used, not new.

AA787 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:15 pm

Quoting apodino (Reply 2):
It's no shock with AA....they are going to need something dramatic to save them in a few months without having to go Chapter 11.

They are sitting on $5 Billion in cash right now. Don't think they are going to blow through that in "a few months"

enilria · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:17 pm

Quoting QANTAS747-438 (Reply 3):
No "new orders". How does that play into the rumor of WN selling its 717s to DL? They'd be used, not new.

Interesting...the MD-90s are definitely excluded!

gigneil · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:19 pm

Quoting QANTAS747-438 (Reply 3):
No "new orders". How does that play into the rumor of WN selling its 717s to DL? They'd be used, not new.

That isn't an actual rumor outside of this website, so I don't see it happening.

NS

QANTAS747-438 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:23 pm

Quoting gigneil (Reply 6):

That isn't an actual rumor outside of this website,

Sure it is, all of our pilots and FAs are talking about it when they pull in.

MAH4546 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:24 pm

Quoting SASMD82 (Reply 1):

Besides Southwest, Virgin and JetBlue, are there any airlines growing in North America? Without mergers or whatsoever.

AA is growing, albeit not at anything significant. AA is cutting the planned capacity, which represents growth over last year.

norcal · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:26 pm

Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):

They might not have a choice but to reduce some flying with the amount of retirements they are having. 111 on 9/1 and rumored 220+ coming 10/1. That might not sound like a lot but many of those guys that retired 9/1 are 777 crews and check airmen that not only hurts their most profitable fleet but also the ability to train replacements. A 777 vacancy is particularly troublesome because it has a cascading effect on the training department. A 777 captain vacancy might cause a 777 FO or 767 Captain to move to that slot opening up their slot causing a 757 or 737 pilot to go to that slot opening up a vacancy there and so on and so forth. I've heard that a 777 vacancy might cause 5 training events. They are already short staffed and haven't done enough to hire check airmen to train new pilots. It's no wonder that AMR is publicly begging it's pilots to give up vacation in order to avoid canceling trips.

peanuts · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:27 pm

Airlines and its operations are a perfect gauge to where the economy is. This economy is so not in a good place right now. Even outlook wise there is just NOTHING these companies get excited about...
Not good. Where is the inspiration in Washington?

I think the rumor mill with regards to DL and the fate of its TATL 757 operations may hold some more truth to it now. We will find out soon enough.

commavia · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:30 pm

Quoting apodino (Reply 2):
As far as DL goes, could the cuts signal the complete demise of CVG and MEM?

I tend to agree. Perhaps day-of-week cancellations in select higher-frequency domestic markets and on some international routes will get them where they want to be in terms of aggregate capacity reduction, but I have to think that at some point they are going to have to begin even further reducing Cincinnati and Memphis.

Quoting AA787 (Reply 4):
They are sitting on $5 Billion in cash right now. Don't think they are going to blow through that in "a few months"

Agreed. If AA is to file for Chapter 11, I suspect it will probably be longer than "a few months." Let's see if AMR can stay out of reorganization through the winter.

sw733 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:41 pm

Quoting apodino (Reply 2):
need something dramatic to save them in a few months

I've seen years of people on A.net saying AA will be bankrupt within "a few months"

LAXintl · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:41 pm

For the AA cuts it was announced it would virtually all be day of week. For example Saturdays will see a massive 13% pull down of flying this winter, while other days like Tue/Wed would see 4-5% reductions.

However there would be some long-haul changes also - DFW-NRT would be reduced from 14 to 12 per week, and also DFW-LHR would see "capacity rationalization" with 763 replacing a 777. They also said JFK-HND was suspended but we knew that already.
I suspect these changes are more related to pilot shortages than performance except in HND's case.

commavia · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:45 pm

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 13):
I suspect these changes are more related to pilot shortages than performance except in HND's case.

That was my understanding - this is pretty much related to the lead time required to train new 777 pilots.

With the re-shuffle this is going to cause, and given the remaining APA members still on furlough (I don't think it was all that many, maybe a few hundred left), I wonder if AA may actually - unbelievably - have to hire some new pilots in the near future, for the first time in a decade.

There are probably some CRJ captains at Eagle getting pretty excited right now!

flyinryan99 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:53 pm

Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):
Due continued market weakness both American Airlines and Delta today announced additional capacity cuts in the 4th quarter and for 2012.

I guess I will never understand the industry then...I assume they are cutting capacity because revenue isn't coming in as high as they want it to? I ask this because of this article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Airlin...-demand-rb-604966366.html?x=0&.v=1

I guess I'm not understanding ...can anyone explain? Thanks

PSU.DTW.SCE · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:56 pm

Quoting peanuts (Reply 10):
I think the rumor mill with regards to DL and the fate of its TATL 757 operations may hold some more truth to it now. We will find out soon enough.

Quoting commavia (Reply 11):
I tend to agree. Perhaps day-of-week cancellations in select higher-frequency domestic markets and on some international routes will get them where they want to be in terms of aggregate capacity reduction, but I have to think that at some point they are going to have to begin even further reducing Cincinnati and Memphis.

Either of these rumors would get you a lot more than 2-3% capacity reduction versus 2011.

[Edited 2011-09-13 12:57:43]

norcal · Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:57 pm

Quoting commavia (Reply 14):
With the re-shuffle this is going to cause, and given the remaining APA members still on furlough (I don't think it was all that many, maybe a few hundred left), I wonder if AA may actually - unbelievably - have to hire some new pilots in the near future, for the first time in a decade.

Ironically the recall rate was decreased to 25 a month recently because of the training bubble developing. Essentially American has to decide if they want to cancel 777 flights or MD-80 flights. They are going to take care of the training events to fix the 777 problem before increasing the recall rate. AMR management has once again waited till the staffing problem occurred before actually anticipating their staffing problems and dealing with it accordingly.

From what I hear they have neither the space or the instructors to do the training needed to staff the airline. Supposedly between all the recalls and the Eagle hiring (they both use the same training center) they don't have space for all the training going on.

Quoting commavia (Reply 14):
There are probably some CRJ captains at Eagle getting pretty excited right now!

CRJ/ATR/ERJ Captains a like. Chatter on pilot forums is that the next group of flow throughs will go in November or December and then the 824 will start going with new hires. If this continues Eagle will be a very different (very junior) company in a few years time.

aloha73g · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:14 pm

Quoting SASMD82 (Reply 1):
Besides Southwest, Virgin and JetBlue, are there any airlines growing in North America? Without mergers or whatsoever.

Hawaiian has been adding A330s and a new HNL-Asia route every few months for the past year (HND, KIX, SEL, FUK) as well increasing service to the mainland US (OGG-SJC, OGG-OAK) and will continue to do so for the next few years as more A330s come into the fleet.

Quote:
Hawaiian, which has been rapidly expanding as other airlines have scaled back, said it plans to announce more new routes in the first half of next year when it gets four new Airbus A330-200 aircraft. Hawaiian also is due to get one more A330 delivered next month, but that will be offset by the retirement of a Boeing 767-300ER later this year.

"We have the choices of increasing our services on existing routes, inaugurating new international services or introducing new domestic services," Dunkerley said. "We're still in the analytical phase."

Hawaiian said it already has begun filling more than 400 new positions to accommodate next year's expansion. During the next six months, Hawaiian said it expects to hire 56 pilots, 275 flight attendants, 38 airport customer service agents and 40 maintenance personnel to be based in Honolulu.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/busine...ings_toward_asia.html?id=129709003

-Aloha!

LAXtoATL · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:15 pm

Quoting AA787 (Reply 4):

They are sitting on $5 Billion in cash right now. Don't think they are going to blow through that in "a few months"

They would file long before they blew through that $5bil. You need cash to get through bankruptcy. Instead of monitoring cash as a signal of a pending bankruptcy, watch AMR's market cap. The lower the market cap goes the closer they are to bankruptcy, while I don't see anything happening in a couple of months if their market cap drops below $1bil I would start anticipating a ch11 filing regardless of the amount of cash they are holding.

commavia · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:27 pm

Quoting norcal (Reply 17):
AMR management has once again waited till the staffing problem occurred before actually anticipating their staffing problems and dealing with it accordingly.

Agreed - AA management should have had more expectation of this coming. On the other hand - while not an excuse - I wonder how much they could have planned for considering the lead-time required to get pilots into the pipeline, and considering how the market has tanked in the last two months (the apparent proximate cause of this retirement spike).

Quoting norcal (Reply 17):
From what I hear they have neither the space or the instructors to do the training needed to staff the airline. Supposedly between all the recalls and the Eagle hiring (they both use the same training center) they don't have space for all the training going on.

Interesting. Different simulators, of course, but didn't realize Eagle also used the same non-simulator areas of the Flight Academy.

Quoting norcal (Reply 17):
CRJ/ATR/ERJ Captains a like. Chatter on pilot forums is that the next group of flow throughs will go in November or December and then the 824 will start going with new hires. If this continues Eagle will be a very different (very junior) company in a few years time.

That is going to have a substantial impact on closing the real and/or perceived cost gap between Eagle and competitors.

Quoting LAXtoATL (Reply 19):
They would file long before they blew through that $5bil. You need cash to get through bankruptcy.

True, although most airlines in the last decade seem to have chosen to use externally-financed Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) cash to survive bankruptcy - not internal cash held at the time of filing.

flyguy89 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:30 pm

Quoting commavia (Reply 11):
but I have to think that at some point they are going to have to begin even further reducing Cincinnati and Memphis.

Well CVG is about as lean as it could ever be at what, 160 daily flights? MEM is the only one of the two with any real 'fat' that could be cut, IMO if these cuts do come from one of the two hubs either MEM will just be further reduced or CVG will just get flat-out dehubbed, I can't see any in-between.

panamair · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:37 pm

Quoting flyinryan99 (Reply 15):
guess I will never understand the industry then...I assume they are cutting capacity because revenue isn't coming in as high as they want it to?

Well, current bookings (including Q4 2011) actually remain quite healthy at most carriers, and RASM growth continues quite decently: Delta reported 11.5% growth in August; United reported 10.5 -11.5% in the same month; for September, Delta is at 12% or 15% (if excluding last year's one-off revenue bonus) year-over-year growth. For Q3, DL is estimating 10.5% RASM growth, and around 10% growth for Q4. The big question mark is with the economy going into 2012, so airlines are trying to prepare for that as they can see what capacity discipline can do to help with yields, revenues, and ultimately, profitability.

Quoting PSU.DTW.SCE (Reply 16):
Either of these rumors would get you a lot more than 2-3% capacity reduction versus 2011.

Exactly. It's not that hard to lop 2-3% off without significant changes to the network.

lucky777 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:55 pm

I fail to see how Delta/AA/UA/US Airways or any other Legacy carrier reducing capacity will help their cause for one second if the cuts taken by them are almost assuredly negated by expansion from the low-cost carriers.....?

Where is there any greater pricing power if you cut 2-3% and yet there's jetBlue or Southwest or Allegiant lining up to fill up the holes you had just created. Who was it who said you can't cut your way to profitability?

SASMD82 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:57 pm

Quoting aloha73g (Reply 18):
Hawaiian has been adding A330s and a new HNL-Asia route every few months for the past year (HND, KIX, SEL, FUK) as well increasing service to the mainland US (OGG-SJC, OGG-OAK) and will continue to do so for the next few years as more A330s come into the fleet.

Quote:
Hawaiian, which has been rapidly expanding as other airlines have scaled back, said it plans to announce more new routes in the first half of next year when it gets four new Airbus A330-200 aircraft. Hawaiian also is due to get one more A330 delivered next month, but that will be offset by the retirement of a Boeing 767-300ER later this year.

"We have the choices of increasing our services on existing routes, inaugurating new international services or introducing new domestic services," Dunkerley said. "We're still in the analytical phase."

Hawaiian said it already has begun filling more than 400 new positions to accommodate next year's expansion. During the next six months, Hawaiian said it expects to hire 56 pilots, 275 flight attendants, 38 airport customer service agents and 40 maintenance personnel to be based in Honolulu.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/busine...ings_toward_asia.html?id=129709003

-Aloha!

You are totally right!

sxf24 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:06 pm

Quoting lucky777 (Reply 23):
I fail to see how Delta/AA/UA/US Airways or any other Legacy carrier reducing capacity will help their cause for one second if the cuts taken by them are almost assuredly negated by expansion from the low-cost carriers.....?

Where is there any greater pricing power if you cut 2-3% and yet there's jetBlue or Southwest or Allegiant lining up to fill up the holes you had just created. Who was it who said you can't cut your way to profitability?

Southwest isn't growing, and will likely shrink in 2012.

Jetblue's growth has slowed dramatically and Allegiant doesn't really compete with legacies (or at least for traffic they want).

tpaewr · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:08 pm

Don't be surprised to see some of M90s believered straight into storage

LAXtoATL · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:19 pm

Quoting lucky777 (Reply 23):
I fail to see how Delta/AA/UA/US Airways or any other Legacy carrier reducing capacity will help their cause for one second if the cuts taken by them are almost assuredly negated by expansion from the low-cost carriers.....?

Where is there any greater pricing power if you cut 2-3% and yet there's jetBlue or Southwest or Allegiant lining up to fill up the holes you had just created.

Because they aren't randomly cutting capacity. They are cutting capacity in markets where they can control the supply/pricing. For one if you take Delta and ATL, WN is not going to be adding any capacity on any international routes out of ATL and as far as domestic goes they don't have to worry about WN jumping on ATL-MGM if they choose to reduce frequency on that route. (my examples over simplify the market dynamics but it should give you an idea how they can the majors can cut capacity and increase pricing power without an LCC changing the dynamic). Furthermore, the majors can cut capacity on routes with LCC competition, lack of demand is driving the cuts so it is unlikely that an LCC would want to increase capacity on the route another airline is reducing only to have to lower their own fares to fill their planes and thus harm their own financial performance. Every market has to be evaluated, no airline is just making across the board capacity cuts, but there are certainly routes where airlines can reduce capacity and produce better financial results (LCCs included).

Quoting lucky777 (Reply 23):
Who was it who said you can't cut your way to profitability?

The issue here is not trying to cut your way to profitability, but to preserve profitability by cutting excess capacity that is not producing the desired results because of lack of demand. Econ 101 fundamentals: match supply to demand.

dsuairptman · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:27 pm

Watch how this creates more demand in early 2012 and these cut backs quickly become absorbed back into actual flying.
Also Remember those CRJ 200s aren't getting any younger and DL in particular will be looking to axe all they contractual can. That capcity will have to replaced somehow. Ditto for the DC 9-50 retirements.

norcal · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:35 pm

Quoting commavia (Reply 20):
Interesting. Different simulators, of course, but didn't realize Eagle also used the same non-simulator areas of the Flight Academy.

Yep from what I've been told they cross utilize class rooms for the ground school portions. Eagle is actually renting sim time everywhere they possibly can to deal with their training bubble. The big problem for AA is the lack of instructors and the check airmen. That problem just got really bad with the rash of retirements of check airmen. They now have to train trainers in order to train new pilots but they are already short on trainers!

Quoting commavia (Reply 20):
That is going to have a substantial impact on closing the real and/or perceived cost gap between Eagle and competitors.

I think it is more perceived then anything given how bad Eagle's contract is. It's a longevity problem not a contract problem. The longevity problem will solve itself if AMR finds a way to convince senior Eagle guys to jump ship. All they've done so far is offer year 1 pay, that's a huge pay cut for senior Eagle captains going to AA. They'll end up staying and riding their careers out instead of moving like the new Eagle needs. Year 2 or 3 pay at AA would convince so many more of them to go over then otherwise would.

For the sake of AMR shareholders/future Eagle shareholders, AMR management should sweeten the deal for the senior Eagle guys so that they give Eagle the best chance of survival.

Quoting commavia (Reply 20):
I wonder how much they could have planned for considering the lead-time required to get pilots into the pipeline, and considering how the market has tanked in the last two months (the apparent proximate cause of this retirement spike).

This happens in every economic swing at pretty much every airline. Management never seems to learn (others besides AA are guilty of this) and always end up scrambling to cover flights and thus put a huge strain on their employees and inconveniences passengers. The patterns are there, this always happen and flight crews and unions are always screaming, "hire more" at the time it would make a difference (which is really only a couple of months prior to when management starts hiring anyways) but yet airlines always get caught with their pants down.

Acey559 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:40 pm

I'm in Dallas right now for new-hire training and I've noticed that the 777 sims in particular seem to be running almost continuously throughout the day. There's a lot of buzz around here and while some may be cheerleading, I tend to think that AA/MQ will really be hurting for pilots soon. Plans change of course, but in our briefing yesterday they said that next year is supposed to be one of the biggest hiring years ever at MQ, with over 700 new pilots brought in. I hope it comes true because there are many out there that are still looking for work and I know how stressful that is. Hopefully things at AA get better soon, everyone I've met here is great and really wants the company to succeed.

norcal · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:44 pm

Quoting Acey559 (Reply 30):

You're with Eagle now? Congrats and welcome to the industry!

LAXtoATL · Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:46 pm

Quoting dsuairptman (Reply 28):
Watch how this creates more demand in early 2012 and these cut backs quickly become absorbed back into actual flying.

Well, that's the goal!

sxf24 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:50 pm

Quoting tpaewr (Reply 26):
Don't be surprised to see some of M90s believered straight into storage

Why? There are plenty of owned and/or less-efficient 757s, MD88s or A320s to park.

jetjack74 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:55 pm

Quoting QANTAS747-438 (Reply 3):
Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):
No "new orders". How does that play into the rumor of WN selling its 717s to DL? They'd be used, not new.

It doesn't, because that was figment of someone's A.net imagination

Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):
Also today Delta President Ed Bastion announced at an analyst conference that the carrier would not be placing any new aircraft orders "in the next couple of years".
I guess so much for the expectation of maybe a C-Series, or something smaller than the previous 737-900 order to replace the MD-88 fleet.

Well it at least it puts to rest any more speculation about C-Series, neo or max at this point, at least for 2012

planefxr · Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:05 pm

[quote=jetjack74,reply=34]Quoting QANTAS747-438 (Reply 3):
Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):
No "new orders". How does that play into the rumor of WN selling its 717s to DL? They'd be used, not new.

It doesn't, because that was figment of someone's A.net imagination

I would not be so sure of that.

dtw9 · Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:25 pm

Quoting jetjack74 (Reply 34):
It doesn't, because that was figment of someone's A.net imagination

Quoting gigneil (Reply 6):
That isn't an actual rumor outside of this website, so I don't see it happening.

Apears to be more than just an A-net rumor or figment of someones imagination. Someone else seems to feel the same way

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/a...ill-airtrans-boeing-717s-wind.html

BE77 · Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:19 am

Quoting SASMD82 (Reply 1):
Besides Southwest, Virgin and JetBlue, are there any airlines growing in North America? Without mergers or whatsoever

WS, AC, and PD are all adding capacity in relatively measured steps, and use what they have a little more.
In addition to the larger fleets and load factors on all, flights (at least the ones I take every month) are starting to get hard to book on all of them.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...ada-airlines-idUSN1E7850CA20110906

TSS · Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:56 am

Quoting dtw9 (Reply 36):
Quoting jetjack74 (Reply 34):
It doesn't, because that was figment of someone's A.net imagination
Quoting gigneil (Reply 6):
That isn't an actual rumor outside of this website, so I don't see it happening.

Apears to be more than just an A-net rumor or figment of someones imagination. Someone else seems to feel the same way

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/a....html

Playing Devil's Advocate here, do we know for certain that Bob McAdoo doesn't contribute to or at least read A.net? The idea of DL taking the ex-FL/ex-WN 717s was brought up in this thread on August 22nd, 9 days prior to the linked article:
https://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...eneral_aviation/read.main/5237731/

FlyPNS1 · Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:07 am

Quoting mah4546 (Reply 8):
AA is growing, albeit not at anything significant.

AA's ASM's were down in August 2011 vs 2010. Eagle actually grew, but cuts to mainline were more than enough to offset. So no, AA is not growing.

Quoting lucky777 (Reply 23):

Where is there any greater pricing power if you cut 2-3% and yet there's jetBlue or Southwest or Allegiant lining up to fill up the holes you had just created.

B6 and WN aren't growing either...not in any significant way. G4 flying is largely irrelevant to the legacies as they are carrying customers the legacies basically don't want.

AVLAirlineFreq · Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:30 am

Quoting apodino (Reply 2):
As far as DL goes, could the cuts signal the complete demise of CVG and MEM?

This article (which originated in the Atlanta Business Journal) indicates that MEM will be cut by 25%"in the fourth quarter," though that was not in the original AP story quoted above. I assume those are cuts that have already been announced.

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/n...plans-capacity-cuts.html?ana=yfcpc

jfklganyc · Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:53 am

"B6 and WN aren't growing either...not in any significant way. G4 flying is largely irrelevant to the legacies as they are carrying customers the legacies basically don't want."

Don't know about WN, but B6 is up 5% year over year

VgnAtl747 · Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:50 pm

Granted I've been flying to major markets through ATL, but EVERY DL flight I've been on in the last 6 months has been full. When we left ATL last night, our 738 had 2 empty seats in coach and that's just because some inbounds were late and people missed it. Maybe they're not making the margins they want, but as someone who flies quite a bit, I don't see how they can cut much more.

My other gripe on DL (and it's only partially related to capacity I think), is that it never seems to matter when I book or check-in, the only seats that are ever available is a handful of middle seats, and I am ALWAYS zone 4. I don't know if there's just that many more people with status than there used to be, or if it's truly driven by capacity, but when you book 3-4 weeks out and all you have to choose from is 5 or 6 middle seats on a 73 or 75, my "armchair pilot" theory is that capacity doesn't need to be reduced.

I only fly DL if I'm going further southeast than my base in RDU (when IAH, IAD, or EWR is out of the way); plus I have status on CO/UA/US, but further capacity cuts at DL aren't going to make me want to fly them any more than I have to. It's bad enough that well over 90% of my DL flights in the last year have been at least 20 minutes late.

tommy767 · Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:30 pm

Quoting tpaewr (Reply 26):
Don't be surprised to see some of M90s believered straight into storage

I severly doubt that. If anything, expect the D95s to be more rapidly retired.

scntekir · Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:48 pm

Why would Delta and AA bother replace their aging fleet when their 25 year old MD 80s are doing just fine. You don’t need new airplanes when you are squeezing more and more out of your existing fleet in the form of baggage fees, baggage penalties, change fees, cancellation fees, snack fees, internet fees, etc.

Where else can you charge $100 for the ticket and make another $200 in fees? Yes, I am exaggerating, but only to better make my point that this tired old model of running an airline should go the way of the dodo bird.

FutureUScapt · Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:09 pm

Quoting FlyPNS1 (Reply 39):

AA's ASM's were down in August 2011 vs 2010. Eagle actually grew, but cuts to mainline were more than enough to offset. So no, AA is not growing.

If you are pulling that data from their August traffic report, that's likely a result of the cancellations caused by Hurricane Irene. ASMs were scheduled to be up in August and, as a comparison, where up slightly in July and are scheduled to be up in September.

ckfred · Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:34 pm

Quoting norcal (Reply 17):
Ironically the recall rate was decreased to 25 a month recently because of the training bubble developing. Essentially American has to decide if they want to cancel 777 flights or MD-80 flights. They are going to take care of the training events to fix the 777 problem before increasing the recall rate. AMR management has once again waited till the staffing problem occurred before actually anticipating their staffing problems and dealing with it accordingly.

From what I hear they have neither the space or the instructors to do the training needed to staff the airline. Supposedly between all the recalls and the Eagle hiring (they both use the same training center) they don't have space for all the training going on.

Quoting commavia (Reply 20):
Agreed - AA management should have had more expectation of this coming. On the other hand - while not an excuse - I wonder how much they could have planned for considering the lead-time required to get pilots into the pipeline, and considering how the market has tanked in the last two months (the apparent proximate cause of this retirement spike).

Remember that pilots don't have to give any advance notice of retirement. It's typical in the corporate world to give several months notice of retirement, so that management can fill the position(s) created. A senior or executive vp might even give a year's notice.

AA pilots don't have any obligation to notify the company of retirements. From what I heard, many of the 111 pilots who retired on September 1st bid for their September schedules. Then, they turned in their paperwork on the 1st.

The other problem is that AA only allows pilots to retire on the 1st of the month, which is similar to the U.S. military discharging enlisted people and officers on the last day of the month.

seabosdca · Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:13 pm

Quoting vgnatl747 (Reply 42):
I don't see how they can cut much more.

Charge more. The whole idea of the cuts is to get rid of unprofitable flying and raise yields to sustainable levels. Every cent increase in the price of Jet-A makes more flying unprofitable.

norcal · Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:19 pm

Quoting ckfred (Reply 46):
Remember that pilots don't have to give any advance notice of retirement. It's typical in the corporate world to give several months notice of retirement, so that management can fill the position(s) created. A senior or executive vp might even give a year's notice.

There were strong indications that these guys were going to be retiring. There were rumors of 600 guys retiring over the course of the fall. There were 111 in September, 220 more will likely occur in October, November and December will be interesting to see.

There is some notice, these guys put in notification that they will retire in order to lock in the 3 month look back for their retirement. They can decide not to retire but there is some indication that they'll be retiring. It's not like they literally drop their paperwork off on August 31st and say, "Hey I'm done tomorrow."

lucky777 · Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:20 pm

Quoting FlyPNS1 (Reply 39):
G4 flying is largely irrelevant to the legacies as they are carrying customers the legacies basically don't want.

It's funny you would say that....because i can recall former Delta exec. Vicki Escarra saying the exact same thing about Southwest about 15 years ago during an employee townhall meeting when Southwest first began it's assault on the east coast. Essentially trying to make the case that LUV was seeking the bottom-feeders which of course Delta would gladly give to them without a fight.

I wonder if Vicki and Delta still feel that way?

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