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I think you have me mixed up with someone else.

My company - never has had -900s. Delta found us to be a bit too expensive for their taste, and our pilot group was in a middle of a 5 year negotiations battle to get a contract.

Which is a slight variation on Pinnacle's situation, contract negotiations, etc. Factor is though, they already have -900s. . .so why give them to a company that doesn't have any right now when you can simply re-allocate your owned -900's to another company who will sublease them from you for whatever rate (Mesa's is a $1 a day; According to AIN, and ATW)

your right I confused you with someone else's post but you built on their post.

either way point is, wasn't pinnacle supposed to receive these a/c anyways?
 
Someone from Pinnacle will have to respond.

But my understanding was that the orders that Delta has placed and those would be going to Pinnacle were not presently being flown by any other DCI partner. Pinnacle still has an agreement for a certain # of airframes, but I believe these are coming over much earlier than any additional airframes from the agreement.

Or perhaps this is due to the recent settlement and new agreement between Delta, Delta Connection Inc, and Pinnacle Inc.
 
I'll believe we get more -900s from Delta when I see one of our crews walking up the stairs to one of those planes to operate a revenue flight. Even then, I'll probably be skeptical.

We deferred deliveries of some of the 16 we were getting until after the end of the year as part of the deal with Delta to keep the flying. IMO, I think that's why they played they "we're cancelling your flying" scare, to re-open talks on an already signed ASA in order to save some $$$. The way they did it, no one lost face, so it was a pretty shrewd move. Delta looked tough, and Pinnacle management looked good in front of the shareholders for "saving" the flying with minimal cost issues.

We are in fact increasing flying in and out of CVG, which caught us all pretty much off guard. As far as I know, no rumors of a new base (yet). Who knows? It's gonna be interesting to see how this merger shakes out, though.

Ken, here's how things shake out for me: for Sept, I'm 16 away from the most junior HS line (there's another 10 before you get to the rest of the highspeed lines so that one might be a PBS fluke) and 35 from a normal line. Granted, it's Sept and things normally slow down, but damn, I wish things would pick back up. :)
 
answered some of my own questions with a little research.

Delta/NWA pilot agreement limits the number of 76 seaters to 120.

Compass - 36
Mesaba - 36
Pinnacle - 16
Comair - 14
Skywest - 17
Republic - 16
Freedom - 14
Total is 149

They need to reduce that number

Pinnacle will still operate 16 a/c for Delta however 7 of those deliveries will be deferred until 2009.

Maybe pinnacle takes freedoms current 7 900's to complete their agreement for 16 a/c. They never take the additional 7 deliveries in 2009

The additional 7 a/c delta has on order for freedom in 2009 are never delivered as well.

That reduces the number by 14 a/c to 135. Comair actually only has 13 a/c right now with 1 scheduled to be delivered next year as well, taking that number to 134.

I dont believe Compass and Mesaba have taken all of their deliveries yet so its possible some of those are never delivered as well. Which would allow them to get that number down to 120.
 
answered some of my own questions with a little research.

Delta/NWA pilot agreement limits the number of 76 seaters to 120.

Compass - 36
Mesaba - 36
Pinnacle - 16
Comair - 14
Skywest - 17
Republic - 16
Freedom - 14
Total is 149

They need to reduce that number

Pinnacle will still operate 16 a/c for Delta however 7 of those deliveries will be deferred until 2009.

Maybe pinnacle takes freedoms current 7 900's to complete their agreement for 16 a/c. They never take the additional 7 deliveries in 2009

The additional 7 a/c delta has on order for freedom in 2009 are never delivered as well.

That reduces the number by 14 a/c to 135. Comair actually only has 13 a/c right now with 1 scheduled to be delivered next year as well, taking that number to 134.

I dont believe Compass and Mesaba have taken all of their deliveries yet so its possible some of those are never delivered as well. Which would allow them to get that number down to 120.

Anyone remember Delta trying to terminate their contacts with Mesa (Freedom) and Pinnacle!?!?
 
Someone from Pinnacle will have to respond.

But my understanding was that the orders that Delta has placed and those would be going to Pinnacle were not presently being flown by any other DCI partner. Pinnacle still has an agreement for a certain # of airframes, but I believe these are coming over much earlier than any additional airframes from the agreement.

Or perhaps this is due to the recent settlement and new agreement between Delta, Delta Connection Inc, and Pinnacle Inc.

Hope this clears it up. Pinnacle currently has 11 aircraft. 9 lines and 2 spares. In January we are supposed to get 2 planes, 2 in feb, and then 1 more in may I believe. Since that time we have had 2 vacancies for 60 pilots and those vacancies are for december and january. We currently are way overstaffed in ATL and starting in November we are doing a lot of CVG flights and some new ATL flights on top of the ones in ATL that we already do. How this is going to happen, I don't know. The only way would be to speed up our aircraft deliveries that were coming in January or get the planes from somewhere else.
 
Anyone remember Delta trying to terminate their contacts with Mesa (Freedom) and Pinnacle!?!?

Yep, and read a couple of posts up as to what I think they were doing with the Pinnacle deal. Keep in mind that the CEO of Pinnacle and Anderson (CEO of Delta) are OLD friends. The feeling around here was a junior VP jumped the gun on that one, and there was some scrambling to control collateral damage without anyone looking like an idiot. I don't think those planes were ever in danger of going anywhere with us.

Plus, it would look pretty silly to cancel a contract for on-time performance only to see the company that was canceled be in the top 3 for on-time performance for several months in a row.....
 
Hope this clears it up. Pinnacle currently has 11 aircraft. 9 lines and 2 spares. In January we are supposed to get 2 planes, 2 in feb, and then 1 more in may I believe. Since that time we have had 2 vacancies for 60 pilots and those vacancies are for december and january. We currently are way overstaffed in ATL and starting in November we are doing a lot of CVG flights and some new ATL flights on top of the ones in ATL that we already do. How this is going to happen, I don't know. The only way would be to speed up our aircraft deliveries that were coming in January or get the planes from somewhere else.

Also, with these two last vacancies for ATL, by my calculations we will have about 180 pilots in ATL(someone please correct me if I am wrong). IF you divide that by 5 crews per plane, thats 18 aircraft. IF you divide it by 7 crews which is what they were doing lately to make sure everything runs good, its 13 aircraft. I have also heard that this might be the last ATL vacancy for awhile but we will see when the new one comes out in a week or so.
 
Also, with these two last vacancies for ATL, by my calculations we will have about 180 pilots in ATL(someone please correct me if I am wrong). IF you divide that by 5 crews per plane, thats 18 aircraft. IF you divide it by 7 crews which is what they were doing lately to make sure everything runs good, its 13 aircraft. I have also heard that this might be the last ATL vacancy for awhile but we will see when the new one comes out in a week or so.

If that's the case, then it might be the last vacancy PERIOD for a while. Last one they didn't fill any secondaries, and I'm betting they won't fill any on the one that the initial just came out on. I'm pretty sure they'll stick with the 7:1 ratio for now in ATL, though.
 
So no meeting with a negotiator until April?

What a raw deal. By that time, will that make it 6 years?

How the hell do you guys stay motivated?
 
If that's the case, then it might be the last vacancy PERIOD for a while. Last one they didn't fill any secondaries, and I'm betting they won't fill any on the one that the initial just came out on. I'm pretty sure they'll stick with the 7:1 ratio for now in ATL, though.
You could be right, who knows. 7:1 is a bit extreme they can't do that forever as cheap as this place runs.
 
Officially, there aren't any MEDIATED talks until further notice. I think the neogtiating team can meet with management without the mediator if they want. Given how well that went last time, I'm not holding my breath on that happening. Anything agreed upon would just be denied by management anyway since there would be no witnesses.

I agree 7:1 is a bit extreme, esp with the abuse of 9 hour airport ready reserve shifts in a closet down there. Once managment figures out you can't schedule Delta flying the same as Northwest flying b/c mainline schedules things differently, they might be able to reduce staffing. There's 101 reasons why I won't bid ATL.

Ken's got the right idea. Stay as far away from work on your off days as you can. Me? I get ticked when the phone rings when I'm on reserve. I'm stoked that I've got two high speeds on my schedule this weekend. Means less time at the airport for me.
 
Officially, there aren't any MEDIATED talks until further notice. I think the neogtiating team can meet with management without the mediator if they want. Given how well that went last time, I'm not holding my breath on that happening. Anything agreed upon would just be denied by management anyway since there would be no witnesses.

I agree 7:1 is a bit extreme, esp with the abuse of 9 hour airport ready reserve shifts in a closet down there. Once managment figures out you can't schedule Delta flying the same as Northwest flying b/c mainline schedules things differently, they might be able to reduce staffing. There's 101 reasons why I won't bid ATL.

Ken's got the right idea. Stay as far away from work on your off days as you can. Me? I get ticked when the phone rings when I'm on reserve. I'm stoked that I've got two high speeds on my schedule this weekend. Means less time at the airport for me.

One thing about the 7:1 staffing. I guess DeltaNet (although we dont have access to it here at pinnacle) is showing freedom losing 3 planes in october and us gaining 3 planes. The have not yet released the Bid packets for ATL yet for FA's but they are out for the other bases. We have had no communication from our company about these three planes at all. Ever since the failed negotiations there has been nothing. The 7:1 staffing might be just a ploy to have pilots there for quicker deliveries of ours or quick transfer from freedom, or just so they have people to screw with, I have no idea.
 
One thing about the 7:1 staffing. I guess DeltaNet (although we dont have access to it here at pinnacle) is showing freedom losing 3 planes in october and us gaining 3 planes. The have not yet released the Bid packets for ATL yet for FA's but they are out for the other bases. We have had no communication from our company about these three planes at all. Ever since the failed negotiations there has been nothing. The 7:1 staffing might be just a ploy to have pilots there for quicker deliveries of ours or quick transfer from freedom, or just so they have people to screw with, I have no idea.

Yeah, I saw the CrewMessage this morning which basically said "Yeah, we know the bids aren't out yet, but don't worry! They'll make it out on time."

Generally, when the regional partner doesn't have the marketing hours for Oct 08 by the middle of Sept, something's up. Now, whether it's a good something or a bad something, who knows. Probably depends on your point of view, too.....
 
Still waiting on October bid pack..... and my DeltaNet login. :D

Well, reserve in Atlanta is fun!

Staffing in January should be about 107 CA / 104 FO
 
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