mileageking

Deleted

tracon

If you're like me and don't sign up to Flight Global, here's a link to the full story.



Be interesting to see what happens to the under 70 seat market.

rafi2k6

in the short term, it'll suffer.
medium term it'll begin bouncing back with subsidised Q400's is my guess.

Long term, Jazz may need to invest in some ATR-42's for the smaller markets. For former Beech 1900 markets, it'll either be a milk run, or have to be a subsidised ATR.

Only time will tell.

YXUFlyboy

I don't think so. Air Canada spend good money refurbishing Dash-8-300s, they are good for another 15 years. They have perfectly good 50 seaters available for these markets but are choosing to remove them from the fleet even after sunk costs of extending their life.

tracon

According to the story, it was Chorus that spent the money on refurbishment.

Chorus owns these Dash 8-300s, 15 of which have undergone the Extended Service Program (‘ESP’) which prolongs their useful life by approximately 15 years. Chorus estimates the carrying value of these aircraft to be approximately $65.0 million, and can sell, lease, or convert them for cargo operations

Adam Smith

I had a chat with a Jazz pilot yesterday. He says they're all puzzled about what's happening with the DH3s. Out west, they're all parked, but out east apparently they're very busy, and there has been no guidance from Jazz to the pilots as to when the retirement is actually going to take effect. He also said that the pilots are surprised that AC would go with nothing smaller than the DH4s, as there were many routes where the DH3s seemed to be the perfect size.

The Lev

I suspect it doesn't cost much more to run a DH4 vs. a DH3.

CZAMFlyer

That's hardly surprising. Airline flight personnel are often no more informed than the general public, and many major announcements are transmitted internally in conjunction with, or mere hours before, a public release.

Asset disposal is not the sort of announcement that management tends to widely share at the best of times.

Adam Smith

Porter has certainly been quite vocal that the DH4 has an extremely low break-even load factor. And it's possible that the extra operating cost of flying a bunch of empty seats on a DH4 is more than offset by the savings of only having one aircraft type. But that wasn't the impression the pilots had. The DH4 burns a bunch more fuel and requires a second FA, both of which add substantial cost.

This has been public for almost a month already. I didn't say the pilot was surprised they weren't informed before the announcement was made, I said he was surprised that there has been no communication about timetable since the announcement was made. Because in the past (e.g. when the DH1s were phased out), there has been.

CZAMFlyer

Perhaps my post was unclear: I wasn't solely commenting on whether pilots were informed or not before an announcement is made, I was suggesting that line employees in general aren't included in major policy decisions made by company management - before, during or after any action is announced and/or taken. If staff are consulted in advance (usually via their respective union body on matters that directly impact collective agreements, for example), it doesn't mean they will be informed at each - or any - subsequent stage of the issue. So if pilots received info on the DH1 phase-out in the past, that doesn't guarantee they'll receive the same info on the current DH3 phase-out, including communication on details as they relate to how many aircraft are involved, which routes/regions are affected first, timelines, etc.
Hence my statement that I'm unsurprised about the pilot-in-question's puzzlement.

nave888

Part of me is hoping a carrier like PAL or Pacific Coastal buys the DH3s and starts operating them as Westjet Link. I can see AC reducing frequencies or cutting services to smaller markets (like Penticton, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge already), leaving the door open to Wesjtet to fill the void (which they are already starting to with Encore and Link).

Adam Smith

I never said anything about inclusion in decision-making or consultation, so I have no idea why you bring that up.

You're free to believe whatever you like. When evaluating what's consistent with a company's past internal communications and what may or may not be surprising, I'll listen to the person who actually works for said company.

CZAMFlyer

You're arguing a point that's not under contention, Adam. There's no debate that present internal communications differ from past ones. The debate is whether a line pilot is any more informed about mgmt direction than the general public. In this particular case, it sounds like a no.

Sound plan. It's like asking a train engineer about CP's plans to acquire rolling stock, or a ferry captain to comment on what vessels her company is planning to retire, and surmising conclusions based upon whether they were sent an email on a previous transaction. I'd respectfully advise against adjusting any share holdings based upon that advice.

You once talked to a Jazz pilot. I work with at least a dozen. I'll remain unsurprised as originally stated. We'll know what happens with the DH3s when it happens.

AC681

Pilots will have some advance notice, via the rather significant amount of training that's about to be triggered. With the DH3 being retired, it'll will force all the "Classic" pilots to retrain. The Classic has a pretty senior core of Captains, who will be able to hold almost any position in the system that they wish.

Adam Smith

Looks like AC is now updating the schedule to reflect the shift of the E75s from Sky to Jazz - I just got a notification of a change of operator on a flight next month. Same flight number.