High Life006PCN Home |Post to PCN | Post an Illness | Post a Death | HL Archive | Sign Up9/13/2009
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A merger on Aug 1, 2009 of RSP and Delta Retired PilotsCommunication Network
High Life
For all Delta people who have truly touched the High Life/
Dear PCN,
News Section
Mark’s Remarks:
PCN is creating a Google Group.
I NEED YOUR HELP - to jump on board:
ALL MUST COOPERATE (with a signup Part II) TO REMAIN ON LIST!
It is easy, (I promise), but necessary!
1 Brief Additional Required CLICK on an INVITATION link in the next email from (Yeah, I know and I apologize)
More Details:
I am terribly sorry and I won’t bore you with my emailing woes, but I need your help. Because of a number of restrictions, I currently only email 200 at a time per hour. To get a single PCN notice out (of any kind) out, it is taking me all day of repeated trips to the computer. Further, if another notice comes up that needs to be delivered timely, I cannot do it until first message is through. I need your help.
We are going to use Google Groups as our distribution venue. As we move forward, I will tell you more about it, but PLEASE indulge me and if you wish to remain with the PCN and receive email notices I need you to perform one more brief task to join our newly established google group. Again I apologize. Your data (as before) is completely safe and not accessible by any other person other than PCN Mgrs. While pages and posts can be viewed by the public, member info (including emails) cannot and will not.
How you can help and what you will get:
IMPORTANT: LOOK FOR 2 EMAILs FOLLOWING THIS HL 006 within 1 week!
One will ‘announce’ the INVITATION to our group (and include repeated instructions) and one will actually ‘BE’ the INVITATION.
(CHECK YOUR SPAM OR JUNK EMAIL FOLDER FOR AN INVITATION SENT FROM
What you MUST Do:
Inside your “Invitation email”, where it says “You can accept this invitation by clicking the following URL:” After that phrase - Click on the following link and you are in!
PLEASE DO NOT CLICK ON THE BOTTOM “UNWANTED” LINK – as that will report our group and spoil its use for everyone.
PCN notices will come by email as always, but there will be a slight change in delivery.
Starting with the next High Life and notices coming from PCN, you will get notices as usual from PCN. When you click on the invitation link, your email addresses have been automatically loaded into this group. All notices will come with unformatted plain text “pointing” you to a web link that will have the full formatted content complete with hyper-links (those blue underlined clickable links to another site). That is it! Hopefully this group will be a good long term solution to an ongoing distribution problem.
ALL OTHER FUNCTIONS OF OUR NEW SITE AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS REMAIN UNCHANGED!
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Misc from Mark:
Recent Poll on delivery style:
Thank you for those who participated. The results were 70% of those respondents that said web pages were OK. The PCN will start adopting this format with the next HL. It shouldn’t be a big deal on your end.
Aviation and Change:
Many of us have often heard it said the only thing that is constant is change. It could not be truer for the airlines and aviation in general. I guess in a weird sort of way, many of us are attracted to the continual changes with the equipment, company and industry. Well, on a recent trip (discussed below) some thoughts came to the surface of my mind in a very vivid fashion. This will not be a lament.
I have to admit that the older I get the less I like change. But change is just a part of this whole thing called aviation and airlines. Just consider JAL purchase and all of those ramifications.
While traveling through ORD I remember with fondness the visit by David Garrett to dedicate our new concourse L. We puffed with pride in Chicago, as Delta got done what UAL couldn’t. The first, addition to ORD since the 50’s and one that really gave us tremendous opportunity. As the stations and flight crews made themselves comfortable in their new digs, the die was already cast. Delta would not acquire “feed” for ORD and the concourse was indeed now rapidly becoming only a leasing opportunity. In 1978 ORD was the biggest boarding city on Delta’s system. A few years later, concourse L (with feed) could have propelled ORD to a major airline presence. Today, as I pass through ORD, the concourse is no longer Delta’s. We have moved to share a modicum of gates with NWA’s location and AMR owns that entire area. Delta had in excess of 90 departures from ORD for some time. Over the years the dwindling departures settled around 42 and at that number that spelled the demise of a crew base there. Change.
Before I arrived at ORD, I left CVG. Talk about change. When I did ATC tower tours with my sons (while I was training them to fly) Delta was operating at over 60 ops per hour. Today, Delta has 28 mainline departures per day. WOW! Can the hub’s closer be far behind? One would think not.
A while back I passed through DFW and in an earlier RSP I wrote about my impressions there. Now, none of these drastic changes are in and of themselves necessarily bad. From a company standpoint, it is just business. Domiciles, hubs, concourses, and related jobs come and go. After all, one would hardly have guessed that our southern airline would grow to the largest passenger airline in the world. Change is just the reality and change always confronts the industry.
Sometimes the change that occurs happens because of external circumstances and little can be done to prevent it. Other times, it is a direct (either brilliant or not so brilliant) decision made by managers. None-the-less we have all experienced change. Delta, Northeast, PanAm, Western, NWA, and now contemplating JAL all spell big change. Write in and share an impression that you have experienced. I bet the net would really appreciate hearing about it. Mark
China and Back:
Some of you know that at age 56 I am still looking for a flying job. I joined the mini Delta squadron over a year ago at Eos Airlines before they went bankrupt. What a nice airline and group of people to work with. Since that airline liquidation, I along with a few other former Delta types have been looking but unable to find a new happy home. Over the last 2 weeks I have been gone and the PCN work was on temporary hold. I screened with 3 other former Delta guys for Jade Cargo, based in (yeah, you guessed it) Shenzhen, China. Well, 2 out of 4 of us made it and received offers for employment flying a B747-400 as PICC all around the world. I did not. The 2 fellas that made it certainly deserve it and are to be congratulated. 32 were invited for screening. 30 showed. 10 were selected. When going through something like this it is a real education and in some instances eye opener. After a chief pilot career at PDQ and then 27 year career at Delta, I didn’t meet the profile that they desired at Jade.
On the commute over and the 42 hour day returning to my home, one has to think hard about just the prospect of commuting to this job. A lot of ex-pats work in Asia and India, but that doesn’t mean the commute to your stateside residence is any piece of cake. Well, I went, I saw, I didn’t conquer, but in many ways am quietly smiling inside. At first, there was disappointment, but upon return everyone in my family was elated that I would not be going to China. So that affirmation from them made me actually glad it did not happen.
When your clock is ticking and you are in a region with little aviation activity, it sometimes makes a fella try far out ideas. China was certainly that. Jade may be hiring a few more, if someone is interested. As for me, hugging my grandkids, tilling my garden, and my own bed all feel pretty good!
Mark
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Delta News (Recent stories of interest): Yahoo, AJC
AP Source: Delta considers ties to Japan Airlines
AP Source: Delta Air Lines weighs making cash infusion, business ties with Japan Airlines
· By Harry R. Weber, AP Airlines Writer
· On Friday September 11, 2009, 5:11 pm EDT
ATLANTA (AP) -- Delta Air Lines Inc. is considering making a cash infusion of a couple hundred million dollars to aid struggling Japan Airlines Corp., a person briefed on the talks said Friday.
In exchange for the infusion, the person said the world's biggest airline operator could get a stake in Japan Airlines, an expanded presence in Japan and coveted access to the closest airport to the Tokyo business center.
The talks between the two carriers were in their preliminary stage, and it was unclear what form a partnership between Delta and Japan Airlines might take, said the person, who asked not to be identified by name because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
"There's definite interest on both sides," the person said.
Delta subsidiary Northwest Airlines has a history with Japan Airlines, having handled flight operations for the Japanese carrier in the early 1950s, according to JAL's Web site.
A Delta spokesman declined to comment. JAL spokesman Satoru Tanaka said the airline was considering various tie-ups with a wide variety of potential partners but nothing had been decided.
Japan Airlines already has a codeshare agreement with American Airlines as part of its participation in the Oneworld alliance. Delta's SkyTeam alliance currently doesn't have a Japanese partner. An American spokesman declined to speculate on how a Delta-Japan Airlines deal might impact American's relationship with Japan Airlines.
"We would not routinely comment on the media rumors and speculation involving one of our Oneworld partners," American spokesman Tim Smith said. "We obviously would note that JAL has been a very good partner for both American and Oneworld."
Among U.S. carriers, Atlanta-based Delta has a relatively large Japan presence by virtue of its acquisition last year of Northwest, but its market share there is still dwarfed by that of Japanese carriers. In the Tokyo market, Delta operates from Narita Airport, the main international airport.
Delta has not been allowed to serve Haneda Airport, a mostly domestic airport that is much closer to the center of Tokyo. The U.S. and Japanese governments have been in talks about air service between the countries, though it is unclear how those talks will turn out.
A key benefit for Japan Airlines, Asia's biggest airline group, to a deal with Delta would be money.
Hit by plummeting demand in a slumping global economy and swine flu fears, JAL incurred its biggest-ever quarterly net loss of 99 billion yen ($1 billion) in the three months to June.
The airline has forecast a net loss of 63 billion yen for the current fiscal year to March 2010. As part of restructuring, JAL plans to cut the number of flights and slash costs by 53 billion yen during the current fiscal year and another 100 billion yen in the next fiscal year.
Another motivation for Japan Airlines in talking to Delta about a tie-up could be Northwest's long history of airline operations in Japan. That experience could benefit JAL, said aviation consultant Mark Kiefer of CRA International in Boston.
"I think certainly in terms of the position they are in financially, it's in their interest to entertain really any kind of offers that might come their way," Kiefer said of Japan Airlines. "Whether or not they are also in talks with American, I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they were."
American's Smith declined to say whether his airline also was talking to Japan Airlines about making a cash infusion in the carrier.
Kiefer said a hookup with Japan Airlines could be good for Delta.
"In general, you would expect these kinds of investments or arrangements to have some potential upside in being able to generate additional traffic and revenue for both airlines, but Delta in particular," Kiefer said.
Delta has cash to invest, though most major U.S. carriers have been trying to preserve their cash because of big revenue declines due to a steep drop off in demand for air travel amid the global economic downturn.
As of June 30, Delta had $5.4 billion in unrestricted liquidity, including $4.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and $500 million available under a line of credit. Delta said previously it expects the total figure to fall to $5 billion by the end of the third quarter, which ends Sept. 30.
Delta shares fell 4 cents to close at $8.06 in trading Friday.
See next article: Let the fun begin!
Other Airline News (Recent stories of interest):
Like Delta, AMR Is in Talks With JAL
Ted Reed
09/13/09 - 06:24 PM EDT
DALLAS (TheStreet) -- AMR(AMR Quote) said Sunday it too is talking with financially troubled Japan Airlines, which is seeking to raise money from potential partners.
Published reports on Friday said Delta(DAL Quote) is talking with JAL about an investment: Delta has declined to comment. JAL is seeking to raise $2.8 billion from banks, investment funds and others including airlines, the Japanese business daily Nikkei reported Sunday. "American is in conversations with Japan Airlines at the senior level," said Roger Frizzell, an AMR representative, Sunday. He declined to elaborate.
JAL has the largest hub at Tokyo Narita, Asia's most important airport because of its importance to Japan and its web of connections throughout the continent.