ND76

Neil is the Vice-President of Operations, Planning, Control and Reliability. He has held this job for the past 6 years. He presented Thursday afternoon after the snack break; he was also prominent in Friday's tour of the operations control center (OCC). This gentleman is at the heart of what makes Delta tick; just a really, really impressive individual.

1. Described the OCC as one big video game.

2. DL operates approximately 2,500 mainline flights per day and 3,500 RJ flights per day, serving approximately 500,000 passengers per day systemwide.

3. Number 1 challenge--"convective weather". Delta is the only domestic airline with its own meteorology staff--24 meteorologists on staff. Delta will enter into contracts with outside entities to provide its proprietary weather information to them.

4. Delta has 10 useable aircraft in mothballs in "the desert" [I'm guessing this means Victorville, CA]. Takes 6 months to restore a mothballed aircraft to revenue service. No new aircraft deliveries are on the books. DL is looking at used MD-90s [I didn't write this down but I believed Jeff Robertson chimed in with a comment that four used MD-90s can be acquired for the cost of one new similarly sized aircraft]. Delta is not wedded to going with either Airbus or with Boeing.

5. Delta is preparing to invest "tens of millions of dollars" to maximize gate capability, particularly because of adding winglets to planes (presently, according to NS, DL's 757s with winglets can't use many of the gates at ATL).

6. "Safety is our lifeblood".

7. Delta is making more investment in having passengers best interests at heart. When bad weather causes FAA to reduce the number of landings per hour at affected airports, the culling of flights is made with the passengers best interests in mind.

8. Indicated that weather and maintenance issues were bad all summer, but that maintenance has improved by between 40% and 50% since the summer.

I was starting to get tired at this point, and my notes weren't as good during Neil's presentation as they were during Richard's presentation.

DevilDog438

Just wanted to say thanks for all of the notes that you have taken, formatted and presented here! This is a great filler for those of us that could not attend! From living the traveling consultant world, I know it can be tiring to get the documentation done at night, but getting it done while fresh is always an accomplishment.

Thanks again!!

DJMeatBall

agreed... thanks for taking these notes down!

"No new aircraft deliveries are on the books." -- Does this mean the 787 orders are now fully canceled?

Wiirachay

Did Neil mean the former NW? (Or did DL have its own meteorology staff PMDL?)

Thanks for the summary.

sbagdon

I was going to say, didn't this come with NW? Seem to remember some amazing threads from someone who worked with that group, or knew of that group.

Viscount99

PMDL had its own in-house meteorology team in the Operations Control Center prior to the merger.

socrates

I know PMNW had a lot of other airlines contracting with them for meteorological services (way back in the day pilots from other airlines had a saying - "just follow the red tail" when weather was bad)

GBadger

I will say that (as a meteorologist myself) I was always 100% amazed at how well NWA avoided/handled weather. I've watched with amazement as flights I've been on slalomed their way around huge convective towers in the upper midwest, and have seen some incredible lightning displays from the windows of NWA flights.

Of course no weather is better than steering around weather, but I was always glad to be in the hands of a very capable met staff with NWA and now with DL.

bworrell

During the OCC tour we saw logos for some of the other airlines (competitors) that contract with them on the screen. DL flys to so many locations now... that's a lot of weather to keep track of!

MrAndy1369

Just out of curiosity, which airlines were participants?

Thanks!

Robert Leach

The one that stuck out to me was Continental.

There were others, but that was the main one I saw on the graphic.

Robert Leach

And, in particular, the software is targeted at minimizing the impact on High Value Customers.

I assume this means that if the choice is between canceling a flight to connect a hundred folks to a cruise versus an elite-heavy flight with 10 Diamonds and 30 PMs on it, the cruise folks just lost. At least, that was the inference during the OCC tour. (No, they did not use that specific example, but over and over again we were told that the emphasis when flights are thinned out will be on minimizing the disruption for HVCs).

ND76

It was unfathomable that Neil died just over a year after we met him in ATL in 2010. May have been the most impressive of all the impressive Delta managers on show.

He was really amazing.