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Delta pilots are receiving record overtime, straining the airline’s labor costs, in part because it has added more flights to fill a supply gap left by the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX at rival carriers, union officials said. The surge in overtime highlights a split in the fortunes of US airline workers as carriers like Delta, which does not fly the MAX, scramble to meet demand while staff at rivals like Southwest and American Airlines sit at home on basic pay. Delta issued a record 40,554 “green slips” - double-pay for overtime flying - between May and August, double the same period in 2018, according to pilot union Delta Master Executive Council, a unit of the Air Line Pilots Association. “There were weekend days that I would get up to 10 calls a day to pick up an extra shift or an extra flight,” Delta pilot Dana Dann-Messier, who flies a Boeing 717, told Reuters. “There were times when the pace of the summer was so hectic that guys wouldn’t be volunteering because they were so wiped out,” said Dann-Messier, who is based in Atlanta. Delta, due to publish Q3 results on Thursday before the market opens, last week raised its estimate for growth in Q3 cost per available seat mile, excluding fuel costs, to about 2.5%, in part due to employee wage increases. “Maintaining the operational reliability customers have come to expect and love about Delta required additional pilot flying this summer, largely due to severe weather impacting our operation and some incremental flying above our previous plan,” a Delta spokesman said. He played down the 737 MAX grounding as a major contributing factor.<br/>

Boeing faced additional uncertainty on Wednesday over future production rates for its 787 Dreamliner after Russian carrier Aeroflot formally cancelled an order for 22 aircraft valued at about $5.5b at list prices. The cancellation, first reported by the Seattle Times and buried in Boeing’s monthly order release, is the final step in unwinding an order that had been shrouded in uncertainty ever since the airline said in 2015 it no longer needed the planes. But the lost business theoretically knocks a hole in the production profile for the 787 Dreamliner after the world’s largest planemaker increased its build-rate to 14 aircraft per month from 12 at twin US factories. Barring new orders, Boeing faces the growing possibility that it may have to cut production back by 2022, industry sources say, piling on new pressure as the grounding of the smaller 737 MAX stretches into its eighth month. One of the sources, who closely monitors Boeing’s production plans, said the planemaker has dozens of unsold or potentially vacant 787 positions on its production line in 2022. The actual number of unfilled production slots depends on assessments about the ability of airlines to take delivery as promised, a subjective guess that planemakers keep confidential. Boeing declined to comment.<br/>