n9810f

Thursday morning Delta put out a release touting additional first class seating. Most of it is stuff we've already been told - M9K goes to 16; M8K goes to 16; 76Q goes to 30...

But also listed is the 757-200 fleet going from 24 to 28!?!? Is anyone aware how they're going to pull that off? I figured 26 seats to make it equal with the 75X. Is this a typo? We'd have to remove forward galley space or slide back a restroom at 2R or remove the entire galley on the 757 at 2L and the entertainment rack at 2L on the 75X. And that's just the DL fleet, not talking about how you can take PMNW 75N's from 22 to 28...

Sink r8

Your opinion isn't divisive. The division was opened up with the RJDC lawsuit. Across the divide remained a few bridges, fragile as they were, but these were burned to a crisp with the Lawson hiring letter.

There are many good people at Comair, and I will always judge an individual on their own merits, but I think that as a group, they've made it impossible for us to work with them in any constructive manner.

Jabberwock

It might be now, but it is still an asset we own. Why didn't we award our flying to our subsidiary and flip it?

If it is a write off (and it probably is) how much of our money did we destroy? Can't call it anything but lousy management.

Jabberwock

Your perspective ... from their perspective they were bought, their code was taken, their merger request denied, their attempts at negotiating scope to protect their jobs refused, their flying was dispersed. Clearly they saw the divide as having happened at the 2000 ALPA Board of Director's meeting.

When they organized and started to fight back, that is when you noticed the division.

Not that I condoned the lawsuit or supported it, but I understood why they decided to fight back. From their perspective, they were happy at a rapidly growing, highly profitable, airline which was telling them DC9's were coming to fly under Comair code. Delta bought them, excluded them from "their" flying and trashed the place. While they certainly contributed to the battle damage, history has proven most of their worst fears were spot on accurate.

In Comair's salad days they had their own code, own tickets, or marketing. Certainly they were growing into markets Delta was leaving, but as far as they were concerned it was no different than Starbucks moving into where Dunkin Doughnuts had been. They developed a lot of their own routes.

My understanding was that part of the reason for buying Comair was to capture it's expansion and leverage it.

You and I know the history of other regional airlines who tried to make it on their own code. Atlantic Coast, MidWay, MidWest all died with pilots losing their jobs. Comair and ASA might have done the same, but that is historical conjecture. They know Delta bought them and blame Delta for their problems.

chuck416

Now THAT is funny...and I DO fly Douglas equipment!

Sink r8

You can't call anything about the RJ plague except a failure by management... and us, for allowing it to exist. Billions and billions of dollars flushed (along with our jobs) down the toilet in an experiment to see if the basic premises of econmics and the laws of physics could be tampered with.

And of course, the theory is that we paid (dearly) for Comair because we couldn't control it well enough. And maybe all we gain was the right to kill it.

At the same time, I don't really see what the intrinsic value is. Since all regional carriers hide under our brand, they don't bring a brand. They don't bring anything, from management's standpoint, that another DCI carrier doesn't. Any assets they have that we want to keep, we don't have to sell. So I don't see any unique value that it brings. So when people say it's an asset, I'm not sure what they mean. It's an asset that would require a huge investment going forward, and an "asset" that offer an undifferentiated product at a greater cost. Why would a CEO get sentimental about it? They probably look at it in terms of an experiment in outsourcing, and since it wasn't particularly successful, they probably will shut it down at the lowest cost. No second-thought given, smoke-a-cigar-drink-a-cognac-and-go-to-bed-and-sleep-like-a-baby-like.

What's a little ominous in all of this, of course, is that you could fast-forward ten years, and substitute the words "Skyteam" for "Delta", and "Delta" for "DCI" or "Comair".

Which is precisely why we should have a NSL that allows us not to be whipsawed against our own, and VERY effective language in any JV agreements so that we can't be whipsawed from aborad either.

volav8r1

100% spot on! This should be a HUGE focus on C12K. I'd love a big payday, but it won't mean much without job protection. Hopefully we can secure both!

Vol

sevenfiveseven

No worries - check out this other free app I found out about while sitting next to a guy who was streaming movies from his home computer using the free GoGo!

Zumocast

Sink r8

That strikes me as a flawed interpretation considering they existed as an exception in our scope clause, and grew under the cover of our brand. I believe that mainline pilots should take responsibility for allowing the regionals to exist, by creating a common list. If I understood correctly, such a joint list was proposed, correctly placing the major above the regionals, but the Comair leadership felt it wasn't enough, and required arbitration, and advocated for DOH.

The very point (from management's persepctive) of having regionals is to outsource the flying, so merging the airlines would have been a very, very difficult order even if a SLI could be agreed upon. Utlimately, I blame the Comiar leadership for the fact we didn't even try.

My belief is that we bought Comair because they couldn't be controlled, IOW their management made similar demands of Delta as the pilots did of the Delta pilots, and were threatening to become a competitor. Delta chose to make management rich, and remove the thorn from their side. So I would disagree slightly with you: the reason for buying Comair was not to leverage their expansion, but to kill it, because it threatened to be at their expense.

I think you did a good job describing the world as they saw it (the salad days) as opposed to how it actually ends up for regionals that take on majors. Maybe they had such lofty expectations that they felt a staple really was an affront to their dignity. Maybe they already saw themselves in 737's. Or maybe it was a case of the (senior) union people failing the majority while attempting a bit of strong-arm tactics.

At the end of the day, I think you look at Delta's interractions with Comair as a failure (both in terms of the union and management), and as pilots we try to do something better. Utlimately, I think one of the essential steps in advancing our professions is to stop being married to individual airlines, and therfore, we need to develop a NSL. Majors haven't been hiring much, which might make it opportune to move now, while everyone is somewhat segregated.

DAL 88 Driver

We absolutely need to secure both. Anything less is a failure. IMO, C2012 is a pivotal moment for the future of this profession. Are we going to let them permanently redefine the value and desirability of this career? So far, we have allowed that to happen and even set the tone that we may have accepted it. C2012 may very well be our last chance to make the necessary corrections.