Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
04-01-2014, 04:58 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 2,324
If they start opening bases here with their pay scales then ALPA is worried about losing membership to them and that's why they don't like it and why they want you to write your congressmen.
04-01-2014, 04:59 PM
The Brown Dot +1
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Position: 777B
Posts: 7,775
Do you seriously believe this?
I think you two are mixing problems a bit. There is outsourcing to partners, then there is the ME carriers. A country the size of North Dakota has 100-777s on order. They have the backing of serious oil money. That is quite different than Virgin Atlantic or British Airways or China Southern. Now granted, it is time to revisit our relationships with those carriers, especially if they are getting more of a lion's share of the JV flying. (I honestly do not know the numbers one way or the other). But it is time to look at it, and perhaps it should become an issue.
But to compare that relationship to fighting off NAI or M R Rats is a completely different thing. You think we have stagnation now? Wait until the sand fleas are in CONUS flying between NY and LA..... I would rather tell my mother I was a gay hooker than to tell her I fly for a middle east company, but that's just me....
I think you two are mixing problems a bit. There is outsourcing to partners, then there is the ME carriers. A country the size of North Dakota has 100-777s on order. They have the backing of serious oil money. That is quite different than Virgin Atlantic or British Airways or China Southern. Now granted, it is time to revisit our relationships with those carriers, especially if they are getting more of a lion's share of the JV flying. (I honestly do not know the numbers one way or the other). But it is time to look at it, and perhaps it should become an issue.
But to compare that relationship to fighting off NAI or M R Rats is a completely different thing. You think we have stagnation now? Wait until the sand fleas are in CONUS flying between NY and LA..... I would rather tell my mother I was a gay hooker than to tell her I fly for a middle east company, but that's just me....
I'm still a good long way from holding 777A at DAL. Yet, guys that were flying RJs 3 years ago are doing it right now. I'm not willing to go to the desert to do it, but seriously T...you US base those guys and DAL becomes a second tier choice.
04-01-2014, 04:59 PM
Works Every Weekend
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Position: 737 ATL
Posts: 3,506
04-01-2014, 05:14 PM
Runs with scissors
Joined APC: Dec 2009
Position: Going to hell in a bucket, but enjoying the ride .
Posts: 7,730
My My, that was a....close shave!
04-01-2014, 06:25 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,544
Then to compound the problem further, they went and scrambled everything up like you mentioned just to prevent an already almost impossible strike situation because of the Comair strike, while never bothering to spend a single salaried middle management man hour on how and why that strike came about in the first place.
DCI actually ran pretty well when any given hub was dominated by a single regional doing primarily out and back feed. But in order to prevent the almost impossible next strike that could have been easily avoided in the first place by minding the store instead of blindly trusting incompetent little lieutenants in the outsourcing chain of command, they instead threw crates of wrenches and bags of sand into the gears of an otherwise fairly efficient business model (the built in redundancy of overhead and the parasitic drag of outsourcing notwithstanding). Bringing that flying in house would significantly clean up the remnants of that mess we're currently stuck with.
As to your other point I completely agree that, for daily operations, Flight Ops should be calling the shots, unless another department wants to take a time out for a percieved safety issue of course.
04-01-2014, 06:25 PM
Banned
Joined APC: Dec 2009
Position: Narrow/Left Wide/Right
Posts: 3,655
Insightful commentary right there.
Why should pilots follow ALPA's lead and write to our Congressman to oppose the foreign airlines that want to fly into the US when ALPA keeps signing all these JV agreements that outsource more flying to foreign airlines?
If they are going to have US bases, and you don't have to live in some despotic desert penal colony, it would seem that the better career choice might be to go to work for a foreign airline instead of an ALPA airline.
Why should pilots follow ALPA's lead and write to our Congressman to oppose the foreign airlines that want to fly into the US when ALPA keeps signing all these JV agreements that outsource more flying to foreign airlines?
If they are going to have US bases, and you don't have to live in some despotic desert penal colony, it would seem that the better career choice might be to go to work for a foreign airline instead of an ALPA airline.
04-01-2014, 06:32 PM
Banned
Joined APC: Dec 2009
Position: Narrow/Left Wide/Right
Posts: 3,655
It is beyond rediculous. The evolution of the massive RJ bubble was so comical and so obvious to anyone without an MBA that laughing about it now almost makes up for the many, many billions of dollars it cost us that we'll never get back.
Then to compound the problem further, they went and scrambled everything up like you mentioned just to prevent an already almost impossible strike situation because of the Comair strike, while never bothering to spend a single salaried middle management man hour on how and why that strike came about in the first place.
DCI actually ran pretty well when any given hub was dominated by a single regional doing primarily out and back feed. But in order to prevent the almost impossible next strike that could have been easily avoided in the first place by minding the store instead of blindly trusting incompetent little lieutenants in the outsourcing chain of command, they instead threw crates of wrenches and bags of sand into the gears of an otherwise fairly efficient business model (the built in redundancy of overhead and the parasitic drag of outsourcing notwithstanding). Bringing that flying in house would significantly clean up the remnants of that mess we're currently stuck with.
As to your other point I completely agree that, for daily operations, Flight Ops should be calling the shots, unless another department wants to take a time out for a percieved safety issue of course.
Then to compound the problem further, they went and scrambled everything up like you mentioned just to prevent an already almost impossible strike situation because of the Comair strike, while never bothering to spend a single salaried middle management man hour on how and why that strike came about in the first place.
DCI actually ran pretty well when any given hub was dominated by a single regional doing primarily out and back feed. But in order to prevent the almost impossible next strike that could have been easily avoided in the first place by minding the store instead of blindly trusting incompetent little lieutenants in the outsourcing chain of command, they instead threw crates of wrenches and bags of sand into the gears of an otherwise fairly efficient business model (the built in redundancy of overhead and the parasitic drag of outsourcing notwithstanding). Bringing that flying in house would significantly clean up the remnants of that mess we're currently stuck with.
As to your other point I completely agree that, for daily operations, Flight Ops should be calling the shots, unless another department wants to take a time out for a percieved safety issue of course.
04-01-2014, 06:35 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,544
Perhaps it plays in to this widebody RFP and locking this flying down so that we improve bidding opportunities at the top of this Company as has been done at the bottom of this Company.
I don't know anything, but that's where some of these dots seem to be pointing. Cautiously optimistic with the realization that improving JV language (and compliance) results in a higher percentage pay increase than the headline number in Section 3.
Delta, even with capacity restraint to drive revenues, still needs more, larger, jets.
I don't know anything, but that's where some of these dots seem to be pointing. Cautiously optimistic with the realization that improving JV language (and compliance) results in a higher percentage pay increase than the headline number in Section 3.
Delta, even with capacity restraint to drive revenues, still needs more, larger, jets.
The little blurb in question about the RFP is very interesting.
Are they just beating the "capacity dicipline" drum to stroke off the Blackberry day traders because they think thats what they want to hear? Did they phrase it like that just to assuage concerns about the associated debt? Or are these planes we're shopping truly just replacement planes on a capacity neutral basis?
If that is true, it sounds like a mostly negative fleet plan WRT pilot jobs. While our tiny 747 fleet may be replaced by something lower paying, our much larger ER fleet is appears to be slated for eventual replacement on a capacity neutral/pilot negative basis. It will take a lot fewer pilots to fly the same lift capacity when the planes we are getting are bigger than most of the ones we are losing.
04-01-2014, 06:37 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,544
04-01-2014, 06:54 PM
Runs with scissors
Joined APC: Dec 2009
Position: Going to hell in a bucket, but enjoying the ride .
Posts: 7,730
I think it's more than the threat of strike. As the majors grew wholly owned regionals, they learned that the real way to get cutthroat labor rates was by pitting regional vs. regional in a succession of RFP's for contract flying. This allowed the regionals to continually ask for concessions or at least moderate wages by having the threat of flying leaving if your "too expensive". Hence with 7 regional partners, it keeps them all on their toes.
There is no way that paying for 7 different feeds with 7 different management teams, 7 different training depts, MX depts, scheduling depts, etc. makes any economic sense, unless it keeps the overall labor costs below the break even point of taking that flying in house.
It also keeps any one or two of the seven feeders from having any leverage when it comes to seeking higher wages, or threatening the mainline feed if they were to walk during contract negotiations. It also provides a 'threat' to the mainline pilots, if they ever were to walk, that the 7 feeders would pick up the struck mainline domestic flying, and our International Code Share partners would pick up the struck international flying.
It's called whipsaw, and it's been going on for nearly as long as the airline industry has been in existence.
Being part of a National Union was supposed to put a stop to it...um...not so much.
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