sailingfun

Jerry I don't like the concept of pay banding but 1800 jobs? Lets be honest here. You posted the amount of training you expect from 800 retirements a year and translate that to job loss. What you don't factor in is how many training events there would be with pay banding. Pilots will still move for many reasons. Trips on equipment, pay raise to a new band, bored ect... I suspect that in the end the difference in training via pay banding into 4 groups verses what we have today might be a 10 percent reduction in training events. That would not translate to much of a job loss in most years even the peak.
I don't want pay banding because I think when you divorce yourself entirely from the revenue generation capabilities of the airframes you make it harder to generate future raises. Yes pay banding will cost jobs but nothing like 1800.
Pay banding was floated by Leo Mullins around 2000 and it went over like a lead ballon. Taxi speeds dropped to a crawl for a few days and management quickly retracted it. The rates they offered were good so it was the concept not the rates that were rejected. I don't see the pilot group going for it today.

Herkflyr

So anyone who doesn't gleefully promote a "burn down the house/full pay to the last day/liquidation, not humiliation!" (I've seen and heard all of them) is an "advocate for concessions and helping management"????

Evidence? I can claim that the moon is made of green cheese, but I better have a slice of it to show you. Most guys on here are just guys who take an interest in their career and find this forum more congenial and less toxic than others--such as the DALPA forum that posts such as yours (and Buzz's equally toxic counterposts) helped render inconsequential.

I agree that the C2012 sell job was over the top. That said I voted for it, and would again. It was a good--not great--agreement. If I had a crystal ball I would know how to bet at the horse races. I don't, and given lots of things, I would vote for it again.

We didn't. DALPA has done a great job getting us lots of incremental gains compounded on top of each other. You attack Sailing's posts, but he is spot on. Work rules, pay and retirement contributions are all far, far improved from our lowest points 8-9 years ago. What has the APA accomplished? Very little, until recently. USAPA? What a joke.

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Probably a bit of an oversell on DALPA's part. But do you think voting No would have given us a markedly improved contract? I don't.

For nothing? Are you kidding me? Do you even read the contract or know what is in it? How about a permanent increase to the reserve guarantee? How about vacation, mil leave, etc, applying toward when a reserve is full for the month? That alone was a huge quality of life improvement--one that C2K never had, nor ever envisioned.

Like most pilots, you don't realize that profits are, by definition, the property of the shareholders. That is why Apple (beloved by many mgmt and DALPA-bashers) has $130 BILLION dollars in cash just sitting there--not one penny of it is going to the employees. Where is the hate? Microsoft had a $54 billion hoard a few years ago and actually told the employees that they (the employees) had to pay more for health care because "Microsoft couldn't afford it." When the $54 billion was brought up, their CEO (Steve Ballmer at the time) replied, "that's not your money, that's the shareholders' money." Microsoft then proceeded to get rid of all of the cash with a special one time dividend and stock buyback--none of it went to the employees. While that is cold, heartless, and something that I do NOT embrace, remember that next time you accuse DALPA of a "sellout" because mgmt allocated cash to the shareholders and not us. Any money we get from the company has to be strongly wrested from mgmt. They and the shareholders that they represent don't just hand it over because an internet message board loudly proclaims that they are suppose to. Given that, I think our DALPA negotiators have done a great job the past few years, one relatively small gain at a time, many times, each compounded on top of each.

That doesn't mean that I want profit sharing reduced, but management is "giving" anything away with dividends and stock buybacks. The shareholders, represented by the BOD are entitled to it, if they wish in that form.

I think I know who Sailing is. He isn't "connected" or "influential." While I find some of his posts a bit haughty, I also read that he just stays engaged, informed, and doesn't pull factoids out of his derriere to support the quickly-forgotten argument of the moment.

Source? Since we just negotiated to wrest back our sick leave into it's current and decent form from the BK trashing it took, I think it would be mighty astounding for mgmt to try and take it back down a notch or two.

You may be right on the other two, but just because they propose it doesn't mean much, especially in this huge profit era.

I disagree with your first statement. I and everyone else on this seniority list agree with the second.

Even if your number is correct, have you forgotten to add back all the gains? And for what it's worth, while the C2K pay rates were great, you can have the work rules. Our work rules are much better now. Or do you want...

Reserves are guaranteed a Duty Period Minimum of 2 hours, and other than trip and duty rigs that may or may not mean anything, NOTHING else--no Average Daily Guarantee, no Duty Period Average.

No Average Daily Guarantee at all.

No Vacation Slide. By God, every vacation will start on Sunday, end on Saturday, and you are going to like it.

No Bidding for CQ. You will go to CQ when the company, not the pilot, says. You can be #1 and by God if the company wants to schedule you for back to back A period sims, which you hate, then guess what That is what you get. (Happened to me many times pre-bidding for CQ, hasn't happened yet since).

I agree--and we don't have much of one any more. It is far far better than what it was 8-9 years ago. It is not the same contract by a light year. That said we still have a ways to go on the pay side, though lately I've flown with a lot of guys recently saying something like "I was pleasantly surprised by my 2013 W2."

I can agree with you there. I disagree with your method. You seem to think that constant conflict, automatically voting No on anything, and publicly insulting the very guys who are putting their lives on hold for a couple of years on all of our behalf is somehow effective. The APA and USAPAs of the world show that that is not necessarily the case.

After some intellectual "waffling" I am "all in" in favor of DALPA's current approach, because it currently is working. That is due in part to a good management team that wants to get along and prosper together.

I realize that these conditions won't always exist, and there most likely will be a time to think of taking very hard-nosed, threatening positions. I just don't think it necessary to do so now, as long as keep getting contractual improvements year after year, as we have ever since the merger, and even slightly prior to that.

tsquare

Isn't that special?

tsquare

blah blah blah..... dounghnut talking points all around.


When's the vote Jerry?

RonRicco

Management would love number 1, but every line holder out there would not.

tsquare

OK wiseguy. Same bet to you that I offered Carl. 50 thousand dollars says that I will not sell one damned thing until there is a vote. When we have a TA, I will sell nothing. Put your money where your mouth is Jerry.. Heck if I can get all the DPA clowns to take the bet I'll retire after the contract is signed.

You talk really big, but you don't back it up. Accuse me of selling concessions... let's get it on.

Or are you scared?

We can even have jury selection to see if I break the rules. I figure we can come up with 5 people on here to judge whether or not I was selling anything. You are so confident, you have nothing to lose.

alfaromeo

Without any comment on the wisdom of pay banding, at least the discussion should center around the facts rather than wild speculation.

If you want to figure out the productivity gains from pay banding you would start with the average number of non-new hire pilots that are in the upgrade training pipeline (from initial academics through IOE completion) on any given day. Continuing qualification training would not count as that would stay unchanged with pay banding.

You would use a daily average because we have training starting and ending each day of the month and a variable amount of crews are in training in any one day. You would exclude new hires because no matter what the pay structure is, you will have to give them training when they get hired.

My guess is the daily average is in the 100-150 pilot range. It was lower before but training has been going up lately. Maybe someone with training center connections has a better number.

For the sake of discussion, let's use 150. If you go to pay banding, you will not be able to eliminate all training, because pilots will still jump between bands and from first officer to Captain. Let's estimate that we would save 1/3 of training by going to pay banding. That means you would save on average 50 pilots per year from pay banding.

If you try to say it's 1800 pilots, that means you would estimate that there are 5400 pilots in training at any one time, again assuming you save 1/3 of the training events. Even if you predict you will save 100% of training events (an impossibility unless you lock every new hire into one seat, including Captain seats, and keep them there until retirement) you would need to average 1800 pilots a day in training to save 1800 jobs. In other words, every Delta pilot would change jobs in 12 months or less. That does not seem plausible.

Attack away, but at least attack with facts not wild hyperbole.

Bucking Bar

I just love Austrailian reporting ...

gzsg

Nice try to get the focus off you selling us out for the management tool you are.

None of my posts have anything to do with DPA.

Let's focus on you and sailing not selling concessions during record profits.

UnusualAttitude

There are days when you realize that no matter what you are part of a big and often heartless profit machine. As many of you in SEC country are probably aware former Auburn University TE Philip Lutzenkirchen was killed in a car accident very early Sunday morning. Though our time at Auburn did not overlap (I'm a bit older than Lutz) the younger brother of one of my closest friends did become roommates with Philip for several years. This younger brother is going to be married in August and the customary bachelor party in Las Vegas was scheduled for the July 4th weekend, Philip was scheduled to attend the bachelor party (had a ticket booked with Delta) and was supposed to be a groomsman in the wedding.

The party is scheduled to fly out of MSY to LAS on Thursday via LAX on Delta. The brother of my friend will now be traveling to ATL to attend the funeral services for Lutz on Wednesday and called Delta to try and change the first segment of his itinerary so that he could fly out of ATL instead of MSY. In order to do this Delta will charge my friend $320 to make up the fare difference. He was initially told he would be charged an additional $200 change fee though it was subsequently decided that if he would provide the name of the deceased, name of funeral home, and phone number of funeral director that they would change this.

I realize that there are bad people who would attempt to defraud Delta Air Lines by using the "my friend died" excuse. However, in this and all sincerely tragic circumstances it is sad to see the profit machine in work when there are flights with seats available.

Just an observation and this type of scenario is likely not unique to Delta. A tragic circumstance for these young men, not being made any easier by the airlines.

UA