Delta's Comair announces major downsizing

We're selling half the fleet, but for those that don't get cut by furloughs, we want you to work for nothing like the bottom feeders that will take over your flying. Right.

Some would say these very aircraft are the bottom feeders that took away flying from the mainline.

Since the majority of US domestic airlift is provided by these "bottom feeders" it is ludicrous to assume they are unprofitable. It is however easy to see why the management sees an opportunity to squeeze more money from 3 labor groups going into negotiations by giving them a bleak future unless they play ball. Expect this at all whipsaw able carriers for the foreseeable future. Bankruptcy verdicts in regards to labor contracts have given them a new and easier tool to reduce all labor contracts with no recourse from those harmed as well. Only some legislation or responsible managements will change this. And I am not banking on the second one. The end of the line is coming to the "trunk" carriers as in this case, it rolls up hill. Wage and lifestyle erosion is the mainline labor groups worst enemy and sadly they can't seem to see it coming.

First Atlantic Coast. Then Chataqua. Should have sut down Atlantic Southeast. Glad I retired out when I did. Could see this coming five years ago. Went thru two cutbacks at DL but when the NW merger came along it was time to leave. I think within three years we're going to have 3 main coast to coast carriers with the small fry feeding the main hubs. In the east EWR, (CO) ATL, JFK (DL). Midwest DFW (AA), IAH (CO) West SLC (DL), LAX (DL) (CO) (AA). Don't know if USAir can survive so not listing CLT, PHL, and PHX. Of course the feeders will be flying Emb's and the like. Some of them will have seating for 75-150 and have the range for north/south routings and most of the east/west routes. It was a fun ride but the joy just ain't there a no more.

EAGLE is next.

Good riddance Comair Pilots. You took the mainline flying with "Glee". I remember the taunts of the RJ Defense guys and the RJ Armada...gmafb. Your lawsuits against the mainline Delta Pilots were without merit, our scope clause protects OUR flying! Ironically you accepted Delta Pilot money to help you out during your strike a few years back! 50 seat RJ's are and have always been unprofitable. CASM were always too high. The only reason RJ's existed was to provide "frequency" to the smaller cities. Turns out Passengers liked the frequency but hated the RJ's more so that ended the 50-seat RJ. Scope clauses will limit larger RJ flying enough to keep them in check too. Mainline flying is mainline flying period. You guys made your bed now lie in it.

What's being demonstrated here once again is that unions cannot make economic realities disappear. An airline is like a human body. All the parts must work together for it to be healthy. If the liver decides to take more than its share of the available nutrition, the health of the body suffers. When any cells decide to grab all they can get without regard for the health of the body, we call that a cancer. This of course applies to the brain (management) as well. Cooperation is the hallmark of any healthy organism or organization. As our country is ever more filled with "me,me,me" individuals, forming a healthy organization becomes increasingly difficult. Unions do not help people get along. In fact, they justify their existence by perpetuating discontent.

Fault of the pilots? You must be high. Starting pay at $12-$17K a year, rarely topping $125K after 20 years. I was making $36K a year flying a CRJ-700, 17 seats shy of my mainline brethren's F-100, yet they made $90K +, flying a more costlier jet. Tell me how it's my fault again. Get real, you must be the same person who drives across town to save 2 cents on a gallon of gas, doesn't complain that your doctor charges you $150 an hour for service that takes 15 minutes or your lawyer $300 an hour. I'm out too, five years on food stamps while flying a $30M jet, my pride has finally overcome my desire to be an airline pilot.

Ditching the 50-seater RJs are the right move based on the reality of increased operating costs, but instead of downsizing, they should buy Q series 200/300 turboprops and continue to serve short-haul thin markets. You don't gain much time with a 50-seat RJ over a 50-seat turboprop on short flights because you never get up to optimal cruise altitude. The additional fuel burn is not worth it.

Perfectly said!!

Unions are all about convincing their membership that they deserve more, even when they don't. Sometimes the job you have is only going to pay you so much, and if you want more pay you will have to become more qualifed and more skilled and find a job that pays more somewhere else - just like the rest of us working stiffs.

problem WITH the industry IS Southwest........not the other airlines. SWA can't take you to London,paris or even Canada yet some of You people think they are the greatest thing since 'Sliced bread'. Personally I can't stand them and their CATTLECAR classless operation with old F/A's trying to look 'Collegiate' or the Young Airheads that want to bop around the cabin like they are attending the neighorhood RAVE. Give Me ANY One of the MAJOR Legacy carriers......you can Keep Your Southwest. I would take Greyhound!

Meanwhile you ALL realize airline management is just sitting back and laughing their heads off at all this stupidity. You do realize how much they monitor these postings? It gives them insight as to what their next move should be or what we see as poor management (is just plain brilliant). Please gentlemen and ladies, grow up and OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TRUE ENEMY...MANAGEMENT.

Business travelers....enjoy fewer schedules if your city is served at all. Oh, and by the way, get off your holier-than-thou behind and treat airline employees with respect and they might do the same to you! And, oh, furthermore, I will all but guarantee on my 50-seat a/c, you'll get far better service than you will at Delta mainline. Delta mainline pilots....NEWS FLASH! You're not that freaking special. Now that Northwest management runs your company, good luck with that. Yes, it's sad, but I for one will NOT vote for a paycut. Sorry, I don't ask YOU to take one. I loved the industry AND the job when I started. Still really like the job, absolutely loathe what the industry has become.

Wage and benefit at the "major" airlines has happened...in large part to management outsourcing to "bottom feeders". There is no career left in the aviation industry. There is only a constant pressure to work more for less, have no life and no retirement at the end of it all. Crews have subsidized the public's constant thirst for low fares. Are your hours at work so valueless that you don't want better? Management laughs at all pilots and aviation workers.

Isn't this the same John Bendoraitus that help run Northwest Airlines into bankruptcy. Yes it is and so is part of his management team. And let's see Richard Anderson ex CEO at Northwest now CEO at Delta, Small world is it not

Sure, demonize the whole group for the actions of a few. Delta has a few "Jerks" also, why dont you get rid of them? easy to do right? If managenent cannot then how would the pilot group do so?

Airline Era Ends as Carriers Cull 50-Seat Jets `Nobody Wants'
By Mary Jane Credeur and Mary Schlangenstein - Sep 3, 2010 12:01 AM ET

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The 50-seat jets once prized by carriers such as Delta Air Lines Inc. are being culled from U.S. fleets as higher fuel and maintenance bills make them too expensive to fly.

By 2015, U.S. airlines will have about 200 jets with 50 or fewer seats, down from about 1,200, said Michael Boyd, president of consultant Boyd Group International Inc. in Evergreen, Colorado. More than 80 have been scrapped in 2010, he said.

“These are litters of aluminum kittens -- nobody wants them,” Boyd said. Their only value is for recycled metal, he said. “The next stop is the Budweiser factory because that’s all they’re good for.”

Delta’s Comair unit underscored the turnabout with its Sept. 1 move to get rid of three-fourths of its 50-seaters after pioneering their use in the 1990s. Regional jets flew about twice as fast as turboprops, and crude oil at about $20 a barrel made them affordable to operate.

The drawback was spreading costs over about a third as many seats as in a Boeing Co. 737. With oil averaging $77.93 this year through Sept. 2, up 39 percent from 2009, airlines favor regional jets that can carry 70 or more people and fly less often, or new turboprops.

Comair’s move to shed 53 Bombardier Inc. CRJ-100 and CRJ- 200 jets is a “defining moment on the long road to 50-seat oblivion,” said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at consultant Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

‘Look Awful’

“The economics are awful, especially in a time of high fuel prices,” Aboulafia said. “It makes sense if you’re focused on market share, hub preservation and other really outmoded concepts. But if you’re focused on profitability, then 50-seats begin to look awful.”

Comair President John Bendoraitis told employees in a memo this week the Cincinnati-based carrier needed to “dramatically change course” with steps that include chopping the fleet to 44 planes by 2012. Before cuts in the 2008 recession, the total was 131. Comair’s oldest CRJ-100s average 14 years old, according to Ascend Worldwide Ltd., adding to maintenance expenses.

U.S. passengers and airlines embraced regional jets when Bombardier and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA entered the market in the 1990s. Use of models with 50 or fewer seats peaked in 2007 at 1,420, up from 110 in 1997, according to London-based Ascend, which compiles fleet data.

‘Far Too Fast’

“The growth in this aircraft type was far too many, far too fast,” said Douglas Runte, managing director at Piper Jaffray & Co. in New York.

More-comfortable turboprops such as Bombardier’s Q400 and airline labor contracts favoring bigger regional jets helped erode the one-time advantages of the smallest planes, he said.

Embraer and Montreal-based Bombardier are now selling or planning models able to carry more than 100 people, part of what Bombardier predicts will be a $393 billion global market for jetliners with 100 to 149 seats in the 20 years ending in 2029.

Bombardier and Embraer, based in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, have gained 16 percent in the past year. Runte said a recent auction of used 50-seat jets posted sales of less than $3 million each for planes appraised for as much as three times that sum.

“With profits being as thin as they are, the cost of operating those airplanes is something that has to be overcome with high levels of traffic,” said David Swierenga, president of consultant AeroEcon in Round Rock, Texas. “We haven’t seen that.”

Comair’s Future

Delta sold regional subsidiaries Mesaba and Compass to Pinnacle Airlines Corp. and Trans States Holdings Inc., respectively, in July. A Comair spokeswoman, Kristin Baur, said Atlanta-based Delta continues to study options for Comair. Delta said a review was under way before its 2007 bankruptcy exit.

In June, American Airlines parent AMR Corp. said it would evaluate possibly divesting its American Eagle unit, whose 218- jet fleet consists mostly of Embraers with 50 or fewer seats.

Passengers probably won’t lament the vanishing of the smallest planes. The overhead bins typically can’t handle roll- aboard luggage accommodated on bigger planes, and window seats can seem cramped because of the curvature of a narrower fuselage, according to travel website SeatGuru.com.

“You feel like a sardine, and forget about trying to open your laptop and getting any work done,” said Pete Luttmann, a salesman at technology firm Dolphin Corp. in Cincinnati.

Luttmann, 47, estimated he flies 60 to 70 times a year, mostly on regional jets. “It’s very claustrophobic.”

If oil prices remain in the $75 per barrel range and businesses continue to be conservative with travel budgets, the retirement of 50-seaters may accelerate, said consultant Boyd.

“The small-jet airplane era is over because the economics simply are not there,” Boyd said. “They couldn’t make money with $50 oil, and they sure as heck can’t make money at $75 oil. The only people who love these 50-seaters are the chiropractors who have to fix what they do to peoples’ backs.”

please give Southwest a little more credit. they run a safe, efficient airline that is the envy of the industry. Southwest continues to make money when other airlines lose millions a day. Meanwhile, people line up for a chance to work with Southwest. No one is perfect, but the Southwest model is one to be emulated. Read the book "Nuts" and you might change your outlook.

The preverbal "big picture" The economy is in a downward spiral caused by Milton Friedman"s faulty "trickle down" /"bubble" economic philosophy. The cost of oil, is high because of Wall Street speculators. The government is unable to make any serious changes because of the corporations pulling their strings. 1% of the population controls 80% of the wealth, and Wealth = Power. The Republic is now a plutocracy. The American dream has become a fantasy. How dare you talk about RJ pilots as if they are villains. They work under antiquated rest regulations and fly more legs in a day then a major crew will in a 3 day trip. Their pay is ludicrously low for doing the exact same job a legacy pilot does. You guys are rearranging the deck chairs. WAKE UP!

Delta wants to cut the over-all number of 50 seaters, Period. They have made that well known. First they ditched Freedom and now they have another opportunity to unload some more. This is due to them owning and controlling Comair and the lease agreements there.

Wow.
I am a humble PP out of a local FBO and I feel
privileged to be able to fly.
I also take advantage of new computer tech. (FSX)
to keep my few skills alive.
I feel for you guys who are flying big iron and I cannot for the life of me understand why there is so much bitterness.
I understand unions very well and can sympathize very well with many key issues.
But remember guys and gals. You signed up to fly.
No matter how f'd up the system is, remember that you are doing the one thing that most people
dream of.
Despite:
Long hours with CFII's in the air and on the ground.
Most of which we never really liked .. :)
Local towers with cranky controllers
Clogged airspace
Hot days when your Hershey-bar wouldn't settle.
We persevered and kept our dream alive by flying.
In our dreams and in our waking lives.

Labor.. Yes! Flying.. Yes! .. Equality,,Yes!

Keep soaring.

All of you who make the leap from ground to sky.
Remember . .

It is a privilege.

Respectfully and humbly submitted.

Fred Myers
KRHV - Santa Clara San Jose

Southwest must be doing something right. Their pilots make just about double what their counterparts at United make, they have a much better quality of life, are happy, and their company makes money with NO RJs.

Well, that smacks of an arrogant Delta pilot.

THAT'S FOR YOU MISS SUE

A good friend of mine has been with Comair for over ten years. Delta's biggest mistake was to buy Comair for 2 billion. Then, what they should have done was kept Comair as their sole regional carrier but I dont understand why Delta contracted with other Delta Connection carriers when Comair could have done all of Delta's regional flying. It's obvious that Delta does not want their regional carriers in their balance sheet!!