Delta Air Lines Pilot Recruiting

To our friends the Flying Fahans, and the other 1,804 Delta pilots who have chosen to retire early through our Voluntary Early Out Program, we want to say a huge thank you, congratulations, and to wish you all nothing but clear skies and tailwinds. It has been an honor working with all of you, you’ve made Delta the airline that it is. We thank you for your sacrifice in retiring early as we navigate these difficult times. DPR https://simpleflying.com/married-delta-pilots-retire-after/

For decades, the MD-88 and MD-90 fleet have been the steady workhorses of our domestic network, connecting millions of customers to their final destination. Yes...terday, we bid farewell to these aircraft as they were unloaded in their final resting place at BYH. While we celebrate an end of an era, we look forward to the new adventures to come. Photos: @diecastryan, @Drew_Fellers_Studios

A lot has happened globally in the month since our last update. Unfortunately, those events have not yet given us a clear window into the future of pilot hiring here at Delta. What we do know is that we will come out of this crisis a smaller airline, and yesterday it was announced that the MD-88 and MD-90 fleets will be retired in June. Based on these and other changes, our Crew Resources team is working hard to determine our future staffing and hiring needs. Sadly, given th...e current climate, we’ve been forced to cancel many events this year, including the Career Expo we had been planning for the fall. We do expect to reschedule it, but at this point we don’t have a projected timeframe for that. As always, we will announce it here when we do. In good news, passenger enplanements have begun to tick up, albeit gradually. We are looking forward to days when we will greet them back in much greater numbers. We hope that all of you and your families are all safe and healthy. To those of you on the front lines and to all other essential workers, thank you for your service. Fly safe, and stay healthy. DPR

Pilot Recruiting Update: Just as Delta pilots give their customers frequent updates on the status of delayed flights even when there’s nothing new to report, we will also be posting periodic updates for all of you on our (now delayed) pilot hiring. There’s nothing new to report on our end since our last update when we announced the suspension of new hire indoc classes. We’ve received numerous questions about when we expect hiring to resume, and the honest answer is that no... one knows yet. In reaction to the collapse in customer demand, Delta has reduced the flight schedule dramatically in the near term. How quickly those customers return and that schedule ramps back up will determine our staffing needs, and the timing of the eventual resumption of pilot hiring. That recovery has yet to begin, but it will, and we will be ready when our customers are. Thank you to all of you who are doing your part to stay in and prevent the spread of Covid-19, and an even bigger thank you to everyone who is out there, on the front lines of the aviation industry, making sure that those passengers who do still have to travel get where they’re going safely. Take care of yourselves, your families, and each other, and fly safe. DPR

As the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak continues to increase for the airline industry and our nation, Delta is taking measures to preserve cash flow in the near term. One short term action our division will take is a suspension of pilot application reviews. If you are having a Delta pilot send in an employee recommendation for you, please have them hold off on sending it for now. We will post here again when reviews are set to resume so that you can have those letters sen...t once they will be looked at again. This change will not affect the AirlineApps system itself, so you don’t need to do anything different than what you have been doing with your applications. Fly safe, and stay healthy. DPR

As the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve it seems each day brings new developments, both at home and across the globe, that will affect air travel in some way. While none of us yet know what the full impact will be, It is clear that this challenge will be one of the most serious that the airline industry has ever faced. In light of this, the difficult decision has been made to suspend pilot new hire classes starting in April. The March classes discuss...ed in our last post will be the last ones until business recovers. The decision to suspend classes was not one that was made lightly. We take our commitments to our people seriously, but tough decisions are having to be made across the airline to ensure the long term well-being of all Delta people. Captain Holmes informed affected pilots of the class suspension this morning, and as he will keep them informed as updates are available, we will post information for all of you on this Facebook page as well. As our CEO recently said, we’ve spent a decade building a strong, resilient airline powered by the best professionals in the business. We will get through this; and taking strong, decisive action now will ensure we are properly positioned to recover our business when customers start to travel again. This is a trying time for people all across our industry, and our nation, and we wish health and prosperity to all of you, your coworkers and your families. DPR

As you all read Thursday morning, we had to make the decision to suspend pilot interviews due to the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on travel demand. This is a very challenging, dynamic situation, and yesterday our CEO, Ed Bastian, issued a memo to all employees outlining the further steps that are being taken to ensure Delta’s long term financial health, given the events of the past few days. Two of those steps, a reduction in capacity of 40% over the next few months, an...d a freeze on hiring, will directly impact our pilot staffing and hiring needs. Presently we have extended Contingent Job Offers (CJOs) to pilots for classes extending through the end of April, and we take that commitment very seriously. Some of those pilots, specifically the ones starting this coming Monday the 16th, and Monday the 23rd, are already inside the window where they’ve had to give 2 weeks notice to their employers to come work for us. For those pilots, as they were told on the phone yesterday, class will be held, and they should report to Atlanta as scheduled. For classes starting outside that two week window, a final decision has yet to be made, and we have to ask those pilots for their patience. We hope to have that decision this coming week, possibly as early as Monday, and they will hear very soon after we know. All of you who follow this page are doubtless being affected by this crisis. Whether you’re experiencing disruptions to the rhythm of your daily life, or you suddenly find doubt cast on your future with your current employer, our thoughts are with all of you. Our industry will weather this storm, as we have so many others, and we will thrive once again. Thank you all for your understanding, and for your continued focus on the safety of the traveling public. DPR

Over the past several weeks we have witnessed an unprecedented decline in air travel demand brought on by the COVID-19 virus which is crippling most businesses around the world. There are plenty of news reports about the immediate actions Delta is taking to protect our employees, our customers as well as our airline. We are fortunate to have the best airline management team in the business, and they have made great strides over the past years to enable us to survive a globa...l crisis like this. Our business plan is built to be dynamic in an ever-changing world, to take advantage of opportunities when appropriate and to draw back on capacity when needed. We are now, unfortunately, faced with the latter. Among the actions Delta has announced to mitigate this threat are a 15% reduction in capacity, which will impact our projected pilot staffing needs. Unfortunately, we are forced to cancel future pilot interviews. We regret having to withdraw interview invitations, but drastic times require drastic measures. Pilots who have been invited for interviews will have the opportunity to be re-invited once interviews resume, provided they keep their applications updated in the mean time. We will post updates here as new information becomes available regarding pilot hiring here at Delta. We are available, as always, to answer your questions via direct message. Please do keep your applications updated; a pause in pilot hiring does not mean a pause in application reviewing. The situation does continue to evolve, and we will post further updates here as they are available. Fly safe and stay healthy. DPR

Good morning everyone, Lots of you have come to us with questions about our status with pilot hiring. This situation is very dynamic, and our leadership team is working on making those decisions as we speak. We will post an update to this page as soon as information is available. Thank you all for your patience. DPR

Recruiting Team update: for those hoping to speak with our recruiters at the Women in Aviation convention in Orlando next week, unfortunately we won’t be winging our way down to Florida this time. Delta will have a booth in the Expo Hall, and there will be representatives from departments all across the company on hand to help inspire and educate WAI members about careers, both at Delta and in aviation in general. While a couple of the people at that booth will be Delta pilo...ts, they won’t be able to take resumes for pilot positions, nor to answer questions about pilot recruitment or our selection process. If you’ve got questions about life as a pilot here at Delta do stop by and say hi, they’ll be happy to chat with you, but please don’t go hoping that it will affect the odds of being invited for an interview. Fret not though, the sun is still rising on lots of careers here at Delta! We’re still projecting more than 1,300 new hires this year, and our plan continues to be to host another in-house event for pilot candidates later in 2020; details will be posted right here on this page once they’re finalized. For all of you headed to the convention, have fun, and learn a lot! We’re looking forward to meeting lots and lots of you in the not too distant future!

https://news.delta.com/fortune-names-delta-one-100-best-com

Delta commits $1 billion to become first carbon neutral airline globally

Following $1.6B profit sharing payout, Delta unveils 'thank you' plane featuring all 90,000 employee names.

A huge shoutout to all the women who make the Delta WING* flight happen every year (some of whom are a part of our Pilot Recruiting team!) for being #10 on InStyle Magazine’s list of 50 badass women who are changing the world! For those of you who don’t know, every year on Girls in Aviation Day these ladies take a whole plane load of girls, many of whom have never been on an airplane at all, and take them on a trip somewhere to inspire them to pursue their own careers in avia...tion. It’s an incredible project, and we agree, these ladies are badass! *WING = Women Inspiring the Next Generation https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/badass-50-february-2020

$1.6 billion in profit sharing! We really do work with the best team in the business. Thanks to all of the Delta family for carrying over 200 million people, leading the industry in on-time performance and completion factor (281 days last year without a mainline cancellation) and making a record setting profit of over $6 billion! And...we’re hiring! We’re looking forward to seeing a lot of new faces on the team in the coming years...keep your applications up to date! https://news.delta.com/delta-air-lines-announces-december-q