Wasatch Phantom

Totally disagree....

I couldn't care less whether a prospective Delta pilot came from an ALPA carrier or not (No SCABs, though). I want the best candidate, period. Whether than individual was military, corporate, regional or whatever.

Today's regional captains have benefited greatly from the degradation in scope clauses at Delta, United, etc. Now that it appears mainline pilots are aggressive about recapturing OUR flying, you want to sell out the hiring process so the regional pilots don't hit the street.

ACL, are you running for office at ALPA National?

acl65pilot

Just stating that by not looking out for the interests of our pilots within our union first, we really are not acting like a union. Might be why many want to be independent so we can act union-like and not worry about anyone else.

Running for National? GMAFB. Only way I would do that is if they moved the offices to DFW

scambo1

As our section 1 is written, recapturing scope is not simple for the union. A mistake/situation, I might add, made by the union.

I think some people look at scope recature kind of like hiring a kid to mow your grass and then unhiring him. This is a simplistic analogy, but still that is how deep some people seem to be thinking about it.

What it really is, IMO, is like common law marriage. Why marry the cow when the milk is free...then all of a sudden, the milk is not free and the cow has rights...again a misjudgement by our union.

Yes, we own the house that our common law wife lives in, the deed is in our name, but getting rid of her is not simple anymore. Until we realize this, we won't be getting anywhere.

I want it all in house, but ideas that critically examine how to recature scope are what is needed...not just huffing and puffing.

The best news is that DALPA may be willing to push back on RAH. They already have on Delta Biz jets.

hockeypilot44

A start is to find a way to prevent Delta from signing new contracts. I still don't understand the last scope LOA. I thought the last LOA was to let the company off the hook for the planes that were over our interpreted scope limit in exchange for the company following our interpretation in the future. After all of these recently awarded Emb-175 and CRJ-900 flying contracts, I'm under the impression that Moak signed the LOA to benefit himself in return for selling more scope.

hockeypilot44

I also don't understand how a 170 cannot be profitable for Republic flying them as branded, but Delta wants as many as possible. ACL is an optimist saying it's just a temporary fix until Delta orders new narrow-body aircraft for Delta pilots. I don't feel like this is the case.

scambo1

I agree with you in both cases. The Moak example and the bridge-the-gap example. I am not a Moak basher for the sake of it, but an LOA back briefed to the membership? Really?

acl65pilot

It comes down to economics, not desire. Yeah, sure DAL would like to keep the DC-9 flying on the 170/75 but when the C-Series economics hit the street and our competitors start flying them DAL will be forced in to the situation either way. The C-Series will offer at least a 15% savings in CASM against the 70 seat and the CS-300 even more. With economics like that, the new jets will be ushered in.

Holding the line is paramount.

DAL is layering these CPA's with six year deals along with the existing ones that will all expire by 2021. It truly leaves them an out if the C-Series is what it claims to be, and allows them a five to seven year window to replace that flying with this new technology.

That is why I state what I do. DAL is looking far enough in to the future to see that a ten plus year CPA would unnecessarily tie their hands. This has nothing to do with pilot politics, just good old money.

satchip

ACL, you are focusing on aircraft in your scope arguments. I think one of biggest mistakes we made was to focus on aircraft. Our section one should focus on flying and hours. That's how are manning is determined. If I could waive a magic wand, I would scope all flying over 100 miles as ours. Let the company figure out what plane to put on the route. Focusing on planes and seat numbers is what got us E170s and CRJ 900s flying 4+ hour segments.

acl65pilot

Satch;
I am not focusing on specific aircraft or a gauge. I am stating where I see the economies of scale moving. Big difference.

I agree, we need to focus on all Delta and percentages of Alliance flying being performed by our group. I agree that a pitfall we fell in to was focusing on seat count. In the end it is what we have and where we have to build from.

My point is that DAL will favor casm of a next gen jet over last gen RJ's. The economics will make the case, and we need to back it up with a rewrite of our SJS in Section One.

Make sense?

Sniper

Delta can make $ on passengers by connecting them to their much larger network, including small cities like ROA or MYT that can't support a NB with a desirable frequency levels or international destinations like TLV or NCE - the 170 leg is a $ loser, but the profit on the connection more than offsets the loss (or that's the theory).

Part of the issue with a '1 hour' scope is that it would prevent Delta from developing a market (say SLC-BIL) to make it big enough to support a mainline NB, prevent route flexibility (flying to say JAC in the summer with RJ's and using 319's in the winter) as well as deprive DL of capturing the highly profitable 'small markets', like ROA or GJT (MRY is scheduled for exactly 1 hour from LAX, incidentally). While DL could fill a 320 to ROA or GJT, the connection time would likely increase as the frequency decreased, which might drive passengers to the competition. The DCA-LGA-BOS shuttle is the best example. Today (5/4/11), every DCA-LGA flight is an EMB-175, but every BOS-LGA flight is an A-319. I can only assume that there is more traffic on the BOS-LGA route than the DCA-LGA route, but DL wants to maintain the hourly frequency on both, so they've 'right-sized' the equipment to the routes.

Its tough to figure out a way to ensure that Delta pilots do Delta flying, while also allowing Delta the opportunity to capture premium smaller markets or have the flexibility to increase frequencies. Clearly, something must be done. Perhaps a 'time limit scope' is an area that DALPA or a new DPA should explore.

What about a % scope, ie, only 25% of all Passenger Seat Miles operated with Delta code on them may be operated by non-Delta seniority list pilots? Whether it be an Air France flight from JFK-CDG or an ASA flight from DTW-BOS, this '% scope' would allow Delta flexibility to operate RJ's to develop smaller markets, use RJ's to capture small market premium traffic, or use code shares to increase the network, while protecting DALPA pilot positions on both the smallest gauge aircraft (DC-9) and the largest (747). You'd have to use PSM's, rather than flights, b/c you could easily eliminate a large portion of the wide-body flying if you tied it to flights (one 747 flight = five DC-9 flights). Just an idea, though if it was a good one, it would have already been thought of.