80ktsClamp

For you, Carl:




(if you want the data, ask flight ops.)

reddog25

No issue on the 319/320

80ktsClamp

I never saw any on the 757/767 either.

aa73

You're comparing fighting a contract battle at an airline with raising kids? You must not have any. Heeeeeere's yer sign.

I can't wait to hear your pro-company stance if/when DL someday decides to play hardball with you guys over contract negotiations. I'm sure you'll gain an industry leading contract with all your single engine taxi and koolaid drinking antics.

It's a whole different world when you're not sitting at the top, my friend. Hard earned contract gains are NOT achieved through singing kumbaya, they are earned through getting what you negotiate. Throw in a determined union-busting management and you have the recipe for FUPM-stew. You have to play hardball with them, because that's what they do with us. And if we give an inch, they take a mile. You Deltoids have never had to worry about that with your Southern-friendly company.

I'd just like you to put yourself in our shoes. Richard Anderson begs for concessions to save the company. You all agree, take one for the team, and take upwards of 30% pay cuts - some more, due to forced downgrades. The very next day, Anderson announces a multimillion dollar retirement plan for the top 100 executives, all the while preaching "Pull together, win together." Every year, the top 100 are also awarded millions in bonuses - REGARDLESS whether the Company is profitable or not. The Flight Dep't engages in a sick-time jihad, sending threatening Fedex letters to anyone who calls in sick more than 5 times a year. Flight supervisors flying a trip whip out their cell phones and try and bust a slow-taxiing pilot (going slow due to a gate being occupied) while on an active taxiway. The pilot is removed a whole month without pay. The airline continues to shrink, parking dozens of jets while the competition grows. CA upgrades are upwards of 18 years - junior CA is a 1991 hire. Richard Anderson tells Wall Street that he's an industry follower, not a leader, and is more interested in forging alliances than growing his own airline. Wall Street asks him "Is that all you got? " (translated: Pull your head out of your ass.) The Company keeps 1800 pilots on the street, then announces yet another furlough of 70 pilots, despite the fact that crew scheduling is BEGGING for pilots, reserves flying 85 hours every month and lineholders are getting reassigned. But the company can't recall, no, that would be a show of weakness to the pilots during contract negotiations - you know, the whole hostage concept. A volcano blows in Europe, and crews who had a nice 75 hour month are now suddenly dropped down to the 64 hour guarantee, and the Co will not make up the difference - tough luck, you're on your own.

I could go on...
and on...
and on...

... but that, in a nutshell, is why we don't do the company any favors.

You guys live in a different world. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Mason32

Nawww, the jobs great once you pass the hold short line, the company sux all the time....

FlyingNasaForm

Jet engines are more efficient at higher power settings.

One engine at 2,000lbs/hr puts out more thrust than two engines at 1,000lbs/hr. Even when taxing on two engines, it is more efficient to spool up one engine to taxi.

slowplay

I can't believe you're that unaware of the last decade at DAL.

Our Southern friendly company offered us a 32.5% paycut or bankruptcy. "Do it once, do it right" was the slogan. 11 months later they filed anyway. They took us to court under 1113C to reject our contract. Under the spectre of 1113 they extracted another 14%.

Tell me again how "hardball" union busting your management has been?

Oh, our guys did the Senior Executive Retention Program thing too ($65million). Funny, though, the program didn't have the word "retention" anyplace but the title. All but 2 of them are gone now.

Yet despite being subjected to an injunction in 2001 and 1113'd in 2005 we managed to put back $1.3 billion in real cash in the bankruptcy claim, and then got 5.6% of the company worth today about $600 million. Our pay is comparable to AMR's and will exceed it in January with all that money above already in our pockets.

So when your company decides to play hardball with you and takes you to the courts to reject your whole contract (not some piddly $45 million fine for bad behavior), then you'll get to see what real union busting is about. Yet despite that union busting attempt, in the span of 3 years we've fought off a hostile takeover, exited bankruptcy, influenced the selection and direction of our management, and created value out of the largest airline merger in history.

You call that "koolaid drinking antics." I call it doing the pilot's business, and we've been successful at it. Look at the numbers. We've already got an industry leading contract among the full service network airlines just 3 years after bankruptcy exit, with payraises in 2011/12 and profit sharing from the first dollar ahead. But it's nowhere near what I want it to be.. I'm hoping that some of the other groups can piggyback off the value we created by adopting some of the tactics we've used. It appears CAL and UAL are trying our path. So are some of the regionals that are being consolidated. Pattern bargaining still works (up and down).

Or they can FUPM and stay parked by the NMB. Please show me an example of a long term path to success with an anti-company stance. Last time I checked, the employees were the company. Management is just a bunch of turnstylers that rotate inside the industry from job to job.

Ferd149

Hummmm, yeah I do remember that now that you mention it. I may have to actually rethink this

Pineapple Guy

Actually, I have two, thank you very much.

blah, blah, blah. Repeat after me: "Life's not fair, life's not fair, life's not fair". Once you accept that, you can take one of two paths:

1) the APA route: pi$$/moan and "demand" what's fair. Achieve nothing.
2) the DAL route: be pragmatic, claw for what you can, realizing its much less than what's "fair", but at least its something.

JMO, but you guys could have achieved reasonable gains had you gone with that approach. Instead, you demanded "fair" and got nothing. That makes it harder for everyone else, as your rates will soon be below industry standard, and pattern bargaining is really hard for all of us, when we're not each making incremental gains for the other to capitalize on.

aa73

Pineapple.... you seem to have a very hard time comprehending the fundamental differences between DAL and AA management. You see, DAL management takes it upon itself to go out of their way in promoting harmony within the pilot corps. This encourages the pilot group to step up to the plate in furthering pilot-management relations.

AA management, on the other hand, goes OUT of their way to create as hostile a working environment as they can - in the interest of promoting FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) so that they can create a huge wedge within the union ranks.

If we were to take the DAL pilot approach at AA, we would be ten times worse off than we are now. They would be laughing a lot harder at us. No kidding, they would walk all over us. Take our trip trading with open time deal we signed back in '97. The company promised us unilateral leeway in modifying our schedules - "you guys will be in charge." The end result is that the Company controls all trip trading transactions 100%. They say when it can be tradable and when it can't. Same thing would happen if we accepted PBS.

You claim we have achieved nothing - well, that's a result of the RLA and their delay tactics - NOT because of lack of motivation from APA. We are simply demanding an industry leading contract, you act as if that's asking way too much from the company. It isn't. We will hold out as long as we can in achieving that. And we would expect DAL pilots to do the same if you guys were in our shoes.

As a last note, keep in mind that we are indeed "clawing for what we can, while being pragmatic" - it doesn't seem that way simply because yes, our wages HAVE fallen that much behind. We ARE the company, but the company does not see it that way. So we have to give them a little of their own medicine.