Purple Drank

What "doesn't seem like a very smart thing" to me is allowing "our" "union" to use such a flimsy excuse to avoid accountability to its constituents.

But hey, ALPA did negotiate with the company to make it easier for themselves to schedule their Flight Pay Loss and other ALPA business. So ALPA dealt itself a straight, and the line pilots get a queen high again.

Ftrooppilot

Thanks from a military family.

Delta Honor Guard - YouTube

Raging white

I don't know you personally either, but I know enough to be able to trust you with the survey results.
BTW, my throwaway items get thrown out prior to the survey. And I'm not sure you need to have Bud Fox on the inside to know we want something that smells like C2000.
I guess we do see things differently.

Timbo

Here's what Leo the CEO said to my In Command class, back in about summer of 2001, (prior to 9-11) r.e. RJ's.

The conversation started with him speaking about the importance of Customer Service. It was pointed out to him, by a Captain in the class, that all those Delta RJ's were providing Substandard Customer Service. Many others jumped in, with horror stories about ASA's pizz poor performance down there on Course C.

Leo's answer was, "We know there's a problem on Concourse C, but we can't get any good help for $10/hr. and there's a lot of turnover." etc.

Then someone asked him why Mainline Pilots couldn't be flying the RJ's, and if that would improve the ops. etc.

Leo's answer was, "We can't afford to let you fly them, even if you flew them at the exact same pay rates we are paying ASA's Pilots, because Delta pays you a 30% override for your health and retirement benefits."

So...what's changed since 2001?

Well, we went bankrupt, our pay has been slashed back to 1996 levels, we lost our retirements, and we pay a bunch out of pocket for our medical insurance, so we must be more 'cost competitive' with the RJ pilots today, than we were then.

In fact, I think that's part of the reason you are seeing the 50 seaters go away, and we are getting the 717's, because we are more cost competitive at that end of the scale. Will we as a group vote to outsource the 100 seater? I'm betting we aren't that stupid, but I've been wrong before on scope sales, too many times, unfortunately.

GunshipGuy

My dues are my involvement, and I'm plenty involved. If that's not enough they need to let someone else give it a try.

BTW, what was our opener? Seriously, was that released--showing my ignorance as to whether or not that's old news. I'm pretty sure the other side has seen those cards.

Bluto

Let's hope not. Aren't Friday announcements traditionally the 'bad news' variety?

shiznit

Fair enough, I think some is RJ related but there were much larger factors at play IMHO.
I'd like to know how much of the reduction of DAL seniority list related to the parking of all the 3-man aircraft? I don't know how big the "sidesaddle categories" were, and what the main line fleet sizes were, along with overall fleet makeup (did some fleets get parked and not replaced? .....Before my time;-)

Additionally, how much pilot growth happened from market share (and by extension pilot jobs) being siphoned away from legacy airlines during that decade by JB/AT/SW (airlines with the massively under-compensated pilots who often made 25-40% less than at the airlines who managed to maintain higher levels of compensation) until bankrputcy forced a massive backslide.

I think there is a much greater correlation between those factors than by RJ's, but RJ growth did play a role, and we as a group fell for the trade. It was a mistake, and hindsight is 20/20.

I am concerned about the piloting profession as a whole, and I am extremely concerned about the careers of the Delta Pilots, and without a strong profession we won't have very good career prospects.

I am confident that through ALPA our reps and NC are firmly committed to holding the line at 76, and recapturing botom end (amd top end) scope when the opportunity presents itself. Anything else is a non-starter.

It is my personal opinion that the "commuter" industry is probably going to collapse on its own when the 1500 rule, FTDT and hiring by the majors begins in earnest.

I would love to see it all come in house, but I'm MUCH MUCH more concerned about the gulf carrier and the "Norwegian Air Shuttle" type business model screwing up our future, and we are VERY screwed if that model is permitted to proliferate.

80ktsClamp

Talk to anyone that saw the results of the previous one (willing to speak honestly and not hiding behind a political stance) just how much C2012 undershot the survey.

But next time, quality will not be sacrified for expediency, just like this time, right?

shiznit

I wouldn't throw anything out as a negotiator. I'd rather bluff the company out of one of my throwaways in exchange for gettin something that is actually desired by the group. Not tipping my hand on that if possible.

We do agree that getting back toward C2K is the goal, but I think a pre-determined JPWA, followed by an SOT and TOT, followed by an early PWA, coupled with a very short duration; then a couple of scope opportunities, sandwiched with a way to leverage improvements in FTDT, followed by the next round of Sect. 6 has made a LOT of progress in 5-7 years!

Saying "NO" to everything over the last 5-7 years 'felt' realt satisfying but has/had it benefitted AA, LCC, UAL pilots?

I vote for the first method... "Enjoying" the Letter 51 days for an extra 5-6 years while saying no to anything except C2K immediately would have gained us ZERO.

Want in one hand and $&1t in the other and tell me which one fills up first. YMMV

So yes, we disagree on how to get results and improvements.

shiznit

That would be an opinion in bold. The reps and negotiators I've spoken with do not share your sentiment.

Like many of my peers, I'm confident my WANT list is way beyond my reasonable expectation list... Logic dictates that you don't want to undershoot the available leverage, that is the measure of acceptability in my opinion. By a 19-5 margin (21-5 if you wanted to count the MEM reps who had lost their LEC less than a month before the TA), it was determined by the MEC that the leverage had been used to the limit, and that it was up to the pilots to then take the information and decide whether it was acceptable.

I think that more restoration is likely and will happen more quickly when the Company is consistently profitable and we don't have so many of our peers dragging the wages down.