Originally Posted by
drsan
Of course it is. Small consolation, though, if you are one of the 1,500.
But this is small potatoes. DL's stated objective is to pay off the bonds by 2016, as a poster mentioned above. This is all about DL versus the MAC. As DL pays down its obligation, DL will continue to put the screws to MSP and its job count. It will take 7 years, but there is little doubt the plan is to reduce MSP as much as possible during and after the MAC obligation. If those debt instruments weren't in place, that 10,000 figure would be far less.
400 flights a day? What is the current count now? MSPers, wake up and smell the coffee...you are being marginalized, slowly. Same premise as boiling the frog. Do not just throw frog into boiling water. Start with cold water, increase heat slowly over time. Frog never knows what hit it.
is the sky really falling (e.g. DL dumping MSP like how AA dumped STL after TWA) and does DL really want to downsize MSP?
Makes for good speculation and copy, sure there will be realignment with smaller nicer EMBs and the like replacing DC9s or perhaps A320/A319 on some routes, probally see more A333 swapped with 763/764 and so forth.
Sure there will be some reduciton where multiple flights from the combined NW/DL are not needed between MSP and CVG/JFK/SLC/ATL etc. Likewise some poor performing ones may be dropped or suspended which makes good business sense.
MSP may very well see many more EMBs/CRJ9xxx which if that is the case instead of downsized to a CRJ2xx, that's fine with me as well.
However unless economy stays in poor condition for the next 7+ years, I would expect the number of flights to stay about the same maybe even increase with some new domestic and international destinations, granted, using smaller A/C or via JV and partners.
NW did not have the right A/C to do some international flights say to the Nordics, swaping A/C around enables the combined DL now to look at using smaller right sized A/C if those routes can make money.
-H