tsquare

I think the whole thing was a joke.. Greg Bambo used to tell everyone how many flight hours he and his FO had, and then he proceeded to give the entire plane a play by play tour of the countryside. Actually he was a very neat guy. Lots of great stories about him, but all the FOs that I ever met said you were single piloted from the time the gear hit the wells until the handle went down...

BlueMoon

Were you the guy at Lunken with Flamingo Air?

Mile High Club, Romantic Airplane Rides With Flamingo Air

He had a flier up in the original terminal there when I lived around there 3 years ago. I thought about asking him for a job to supplement my FO pay

DAL 88 Driver

Well there's your mistake. You're trying to use pay rates and are comparing apples and oranges. The average SWA Captain makes over $230k/year. Let's just use an even $230k for comparison. So what did an MD-88 Captain (the closest we have to the kind of flying SWA does) make in 2004 (C2K rates) prior to our pay cuts? Well, the rate was $237.37/hour. At 75 hours per month, that Captain made $213,633 for the year. Adjust that for inflation (source: Tom's Inflation Calculator) and you get $252,803.18 today. It would require no more than a 10% pay increase for SWA Captains to be making our C2K + inflation for the same type of flying. I wouldn't call that "a country mile", but I guess you can if you want to.

LeineLodge

Nice. Hadn't seen that one before. If you click on "About Flamingo Air" it pops up a picture of a guy with an uncanny resemblance to Joe Paterno in a pilot uniform.

I almost wish I could put that on my resume. Yes ma'am I once was a "VERY DISCREET PILOT" for Flamingo Air

sailingfun

Carl, DPA posted on their website that it was critical that they have enough cards to call for a election by 1 Jan 11 in order to be in place on the property by the start of summer and build a war chest and infrastructure to properly represent the pilots in the coming negotiations. When they failed in that goal they simply deleted it from the website. Was it critical or not? Were they lying then or lying now?

sailingfun

The average Delta pilot does not earn 75 hours a month. Especially back then before we lost many of the benies. Last number I saw was the average pilot ended up with around 1100 hours a year under the current contract.. I made 305,000 as a 73 Captain back then in 03 and did not work much extra. Compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

We had 50 Captains break 500,000 in 03 however a big slug of them were MD11 guys in PDX.

TeddyKGB

How do DPAs vs DALPAs stances on scope compare?

hockeypilot44

I'm a commuter on reserve at Delta. I have been for almost 4 years and not by choice. I'm on the smallest aircraft we fly. I NEVER MAKE MORE THAN 70 HOURS PER MONTH. In a few days, I will have sat 7 reserve days. I will have flown flown 2 1-days, a 4-day, and sat 2 short calls (1 of which I didn't get used) for a total of less than 22 hours credit. I was away from home all 7 days. Our contract sucks. I do this all for just over 80,000/year. I get paid 840 hours a year. There is nothing I can do to make more money other than spend my 12-13 days at home away from home and hope for a green slip or two per month. Then I would get to spend no time with my family. This job is great. We don't need any improvements to our contract (sarcasm). We're only one of the biggest airlines in the world even after outsourcing half of our domestic flying. It seems to me we can do better.

NuGuy

Heyas Shiz,

This is a critical observation, and I recommend everyone read your post again.

EVERYONE I talk to says that we need an administration change, but when I explain the course of action required, and tell them it's much less onerous than voting in the DPA (AND we get to keep the money & infrastructure), I get a blank look.

1) Recall the LEC reps you don't like.

Put the recall resolution on the agenda for the LEC meeting. One every 3 months gives you plenty of time to marshal your resources. Assuming you are in the majority, and the resolution passes, it goes out to a vote. Again, assuming you are in the majority (at least of those who bother to vote), it's bye bye.

2) Vote in LEC reps you DO like.

3) Once you get the reps in place, recall the MEC officers. THIS can be done VERY quickly, and can be done with a special MEC meeting.

4) Replace them with MEC officers you do like.

5) Ferret out the people in the committee positions. THIS is where the real power base of DALPA is....never forget that. Why do you think the rep in NYC that got unelected wound up there? These are appointed positions and they DO NOT CHANGE when there is a leadership change. These are the people to present the data to the MEC when it's in session....


With the exception of ATL (in which I assume the politicos can marshal a healthy counter-insurgency...nobody likes getting forced out of office), with 3,000 pilots, you could own any LECs you wanted. Even if you assume that 2 out of 3 of those guys filled out a card "just to show'em" or find it easier than getting involved with a real effort to change or running for office, you can still target one or two reps that would shake things up pretty well.

Given the political situation, you don't need to get rid of every LEC rep. A few phone calls to reps that think like you do will provide a short list of LEC reps to target. Because of the post-merger base structure, you can now put together a voting block that would allow you to pretty much do what you want.

But all this requires a modicum of effort. You actually might have to show up at an LEC meeting, and gosh, you might also have to go online and vote once or twice.

Yet at that, it is MUCH easier than getting a new bargaining agent in place. Not only that, once you own the MEC, you pick up the phone, and you tell ALPA National what's what, or we're taking our 12,000 dues paying members across the road. Money talks....

Nu

Flamer

True. True.