Hi everybody this is Steve Dickson with the weekly Flight Operations Update for Friday, April 6th. This week Crew Resources and Scheduling published its monthly update. As you know, our Schedule is driven by customer and Network demand, and after covering Network highlights on last week’s message, this is a great time to touch on our May scheduling highlights.
Our scheduled pilot block hours at a system level are flat year-over-year. International scheduled block hours are up 3.3% for May, primarily driven by an increase in 330 hours. Domestic hours are down 3.6%, driven by a decrease in DC-9 hours. At a system level, May year-to-date block hours are down 3.7% from the same time period in 2011.
Let’s start with the 330. If you are Detroit based, chances are you have deadheaded to Atlanta to begin at least some of your rotations. Whenever we open a category, we initially keep the block hours low in order to allow time for the pilots in the category to be trained, and since the November AE, our 330 training program has been running at full steam. The majority of the Atlanta 330 pilots will complete training and be ready to fly by the June bid period, which will result in an addition of block hours that will reduce the need to deadhead pilots in from DTW. The ATL 330 reserves may appear to be overstaffed, but many of them have not completed their TOE’s, so while they have been converted, scheduling cannot utilize them in all areas of the operation. You should see this balance out within the next month or so.
Deadheading is not optimal from both a pilot and Company perspective, and we know that when you are working you want to be productive as possible. Even if a category is completely staffed, you may still continue to see some deadheads in order for us to meet Network’s schedule demands. Network focuses on flexibility in order to maximize our revenue by best matching capacity with demand. To accomplish this, they will sometimes quickly shift flying among equipment and airports from one month to the next. As a result, a fleet that was balanced this month may become unbalanced next month, and we may have to deadhead from base to base to be able to fly the hours Network has given us. If we were to attempt to chase the flying by posting more frequent AE’s, we would greatly increase our training costs and lose productivity with additional pilots in training.
Given the dynamics of Network’s changes, it is likely we would still have unbalanced staffing after any adjustment, given the time required to train pilots. Instead, our philosophy is to take a middle of the road approach that minimizes churn to the maximum extent possible so that we can best absorb the swings in flying that Network creates.
Over the past few months we have told you about the work of the Rotation Construction Committee, or RCC, comprised of Association and company representatives. They continually review ways to improve your quality of life on the line. Based upon your feedback to the RCC, we increased the number of one and two-day trips in the DTW and SLC 320 May bid packages. ATL will see an increase in 1, 4 and 5-day trips, and in MSP there is an increase in 2-day trips. We will continue to increase 1-day trips for MSP by reducing the number of MSP 4 and 5-day trips, but we have to be cautious that the reduction does not drive credit time too high. The RCC will continue to work toward creating a more diversified trip mix for all 320 bases with the understanding that MSP-320 favors fewer longer trips and a higher percentage of shorter trips.
The 777 will pick up DTW to PVG from the 747, and this additional flying will result in higher 777 ALVs for all categories. The 737 will continue military charter service to NBW, NIP and NGU. We are frequently asked where the 737-900 will be based. Network is still developing its plan, and we expect to receive more details in the fall of 2012. We are currently planning to post the next AE in late summer or early fall, and we will begin to build up the 73N at that time in anticipation of taking delivery in late summer 2013 at a rate of two ships per month.
The ATL DC-9 categories will open in May with about 600 hours in the schedule. Similar to the ATL-330 categories, hours will increase each month as our staffing levels increase.. Our projected DC-9 training is slated to last into the fall, but we would like to complete the majority of the training prior to the DC-9 sim moving from MSP to ATL. In order for students to complete their OE in one rotation, we will attempt to build rotations with at least 16 hours of block. This will create a trip mix with longer rotations, and we will continue this practice through the peak training period.
Our M88/90 flying was at a high point in March due to Spring Break demand. Block time increased about 1,800 hours from April to May, and the hours are projected to climb as the year progresses with the expected peak to be around October this year with the induction of additional MD90 aircraft into service.
If you are a New York based 767ER pilot, I know the early sign-ins are difficult for commuting. The RCC is currently running simulations to measure the impact of building rotations with later reports and earlier releases. If these runs are successful, we will introduce more “commuter friendly” rotations in certain categories in the future.
Switching from the fleets, in May you have a new option in PBS to slide a vacation block during the line construction process. In order to be eligible to slide your vacation, it must begin and end in the current bid month and it must wholly remain in the current bid period. The entire block must be slid including any supplemental days and may not slide past or over another pre-award, like MLOA, training or another vacation week. For more information on this new bid feature, please review PBS Notepad 12-02 located on DeltaNet.
Finally, I’m asked all the time about pilot hiring. I know that the majority of you are very cognizant of the wave of pilot retirements that will begin to impact us within the next several years. Our current analysis shows, depending on the Delta pilot attrition rate and expected growth in flying, we will need to begin hiring sometime between the latter half of 2013 and early 2015. All departments in Flight Ops are actively engaged in preparing for the impending wave of pilot retirements from a staffing, training and recruiting standpoint.
I hope this gives you some brief insight to the May schedule as we begin to ramp up for another extremely heavy summer operation. For more information, please see the Crew Resources and Scheduling May update located on DeltaNet.
Well, that’s it for this week. Thanks for all you do on the line every day for our customers and for each other. I hope you have a great Easter weekend, if you are flying, please be safe and I will talk to you again next week.
