Originally Posted by Sink r8

I'm not sure if the missions are near-identical. They also fly much longer legs than the 88/90 could ever fly. So maybe a mix of 88, 737, A320, and 757 missions. Maybe that mix gets them much higher utilization rates per airplane?

Originally Posted by Jack Bauer

Johnson conveniently ignores the higher pilot requirements of Delta's international flying. Why does it seem like the data is always so skewed with some of these guys? Thanks for pointing out an actual apples to apples metric unlike Johnson.

Originally Posted by johnso29

If you want SWA pay, management will want SWA work rules.

Originally Posted by johnso29

Perhaps you should read my entire post. What convienently ignore is that SWA pilots are more productive. If you want SWA pay, management will want SWA work rules. A SWA pilot contract for Delta pilots will mean less jobs. But you won't admit that even though you know it's true.

Originally Posted by sailingfun

Minimal gains.
Carl's pay rate premerger 178 per hour.
Carl's payrate on 1 Jan 14. 262 per hour plus 39 per hour DC.
Total new rate 301 per hour.

Originally Posted by alfaromeo

I found out a long time ago that if you step up and actually do something to improve pilots' lives, rather than just writing about it on a webboard, that you will subject yourself to this type of personal attack. I am so used to it by now that it just rolls off me like water on the windshield.

If you ever decide to get off your butt and actually do something, then you will find out that solutions are never as easy as they seem. It is ironic that the same people that go ballistic on this forum over the "FLY" button on the Delta safety video, then act as if there is a "GET MORE" button at the union office, and the only thing we need to do is push that button and money will flow like the Mississippi in April.

If it were that easy then someone at American, or United, or Continental, or Southwest, or US Airways would have pressed that button a long time ago. Remember American took 6 years and they never found that button, Airtran 7 years, United 3 years, Continental 4 years. Why oh why did they not push that button? Is it just that Carl, and TOGA, and Purple knew where the button was and didn't tell them, or is it because that button does not exist.

I think you can tell that the button does not exist. There is only one thing. Work. Grinding, difficult, stressful work. Of course you don't know that because you have never done it, instead you choose to denigrate those that work on your behalf. But hey, we have a free country so you can say what you want. I just ask all the readers to decide which theory is more plausible; is there some magic button to push or is there just a series of extremely difficult problems to solve and solving them is neither easy nor free of problems. You decide.

The fact is that our deal was the trigger that broke the entire industry out of the bankruptcy era. United followed us. American is directly hanging onto our coattails. US Airways is just along for the ride with American. Without our deal, we are stuck for years and years in stasis.

So launch away with your attacks it makes no difference to me. I know what I did, I know what our team accomplished, I know what it meant to the industry. Almost every negotiator, professional and pilot alike, has expressed their gratitude to the Delta MEC for breaking out of the logjam. I value their opinions over the webboard guys any day.

So I am now much happier that I have peeled off those layers of responsibility layers that affected me both at work and at home for too many years. I feel no remorse because I gave my time, now it is someone else's turn. In the most difficult times I always relied on this quote from Winston Churchill:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

So I have stumbled, I have fallen short, I have dared and lost, I admit to all those failings. But I was there, fighting the best fight I could and others were sitting on the sidelines carping and crying and complaining. If that makes you feel superior then go ahead. I don't see it that way. I have a camaraderie with those guys that I fought with that will last my lifetime. Those are just as important to me as the monetary gains that we achieved. I only wish for you that you can get off this mountain of bitterness that you have built for yourself and get involved in some positive action to better the lives of those around you. You seem to be a particularly unhappy and bitter person. Your attacks mean nothing to me as you aren't in the arena, you aren't fighting the fight, you are just a brick.

Originally Posted by BigGuns

Now if Delta had as many 777/747 as AA and UAL do, or even half as many as they have on order, that might be something to flaunt... Or even if ALL Delta's widebodies paid that rate, not just 30-some planes.