keenster

Thanks for your response. I agree somewhat with the exception that I should not give up any of my upward movement to a Delta guy when it comes to NWA retirements. Take a look at this.This is a very good explanation of what happened to PAA pilots SLI with DAL. Lessons to be learned ,as you "watch their feet"...

Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2000 5:31 PM
Subject: one alpa

Gentlemen:

Great Web Site!

I share your frustration.

After reading what you are attempting to do, I thought you might like to hear a little history of the most recent acquisition and seniority list integration.

I am one of the Pan Am pilots who was "acquired" (Delta term) in 1991. I write this email to you as a warning about what can happen in your quest for a combined list. Do not trust Delta. Do not trust ALPA. We call one another brothers at ALPA until it is a choice between you or a mainline Delta pilot...then there is no choice. You will be sold out by ALPA or used by ALPA for the benefit of the Delta mainline pilots. I speak from experience.

In 1991 we (Pan Am) pilots were told by Delta management (Sr VP Flt Opns Captain Harry Alger and Captain Dave Greenberg) that we would be integrated into the seniority list in a "fair and equitable manner". This was Delta's terminology. Alger and Greenberg asked Captain Sheldon, Delta ALPA MEC Chairman to put together a merged seniority list. A committee was formed to investigate the two pilot groups and form a proposed seniority list. At this point I should point out that just one month before this exercise began, when the PanAm acquisition was a done deal, the ALPA executive committee voted to remove language in ALPA's merger policy stating mergers should be accomplished in date of hire! Captain Sheldon was a member of this committee. [N2264J note: The Delta MEC had a member who sat on the Board of Directors and would know months in advance if Delta were planning an acquisition then maneuver to change ALPA merger policy before hand. That happened again at the ALPA BOD in 1998, just a four months before Delta announced the purchased ASA.] The merger committee did it's job and formed a proposed seniority list. The list ratio'd Pan Am pilots into the Delta seniority list which resulted in a loss of seniority of approximately 10 years in the worst case. This seniority list was to be presented to Delta Flight Ops management at the next MEC meeting.

The next MEC meeting was attended by Dave Greenberg and Harry Alger. The proposed seniority list was presented to Alger/Greenberg who did not even look at it. Instead, they threw on the table what they termed the "company list". When the MEC looked at this list Alger/Greenberg presented, they were amazed. The worse case loss of seniority to a Pan Am pilot was over 23 years! Immediately, they recognized Delta wanted this list and would negotiate to get it. When asked what Delta ALPA would get should it accepted this list, Alger/Greenberg responded by offering agency shop agreement and a 2% pay increase. Sheldon and his MEC bought it! It is interesting to note that Delta Flight Ops management stated in prior years that there would never be an agency shop agreement at Delta. Many Western pilots dropped out of ALPA after their merger with Delta because of the seniority list integration. The Delta MEC had to assume the Pan Am pilots would also be upset with the integration. The combination of the two groups and the other non-members represented millions of dollars. The Delta offer solved a major economic and control problem of the Delta MEC. Thus, the Pan Am pilots were sold out for a 2% pay increase and agency shop by our "brothers in ALPA". So much for brotherhood between two ALPA represented major airlines.

The Delta "company list" started integrating the Pan Am pilots into the combined list at approximately the senior man on the 767. Their rational was that we were bringing over aircraft that were similar to the 767 so this is where we should start appearing on the list. If one accepts this rational for integration, then it would also be fair to come up from the bottom to the most junior man on the 727 and integrate all Pan Am airmen into the list between the most senior 767 airman and the most junior 727 airman, since we did not bring any airplane over smaller than a 727 - (Delta had DC-9's). Not so. A ratio was established at 1:11 starting at the 767 senior captain until reaching to co-pilots where it reverted to 1:13 until all airman were inserted into the list. But guess what? Delta ran out of Delta pilots. So what Delta flight operations management did is insert 13 X's into the list after the last Delta pilot then a Pan Am pilot, another 13 X's - a Pan Am pilot until finally all Pan Am pilots were accounted for as follows:
Last Delta Pilot
Pan Am Pilot


And we are supposed to think that we are going to get a fair deal.

keenster

rvr350

We can argue all day long and there'll always be at least one pilot not happy with how things turned out with any SLI integration. Our seniority number can be "tweaked" by mathematical formulae to fit into any scenario that we'd like to persuade an opposing party.

PS: I didn't think PAA was "merged" by DL, more like "acquired" in part.

keenster

You guy are Incredible. THE great aquirers. Just throw people under the bus. Here are some facts for you.

Delta is in much worse financial shape than Northwest. NWA's profit margin is the best in the industry -- 6 percent -- while Delta's is around 3.5 percent. NWA's balance sheet has $3 billion in cash, the best of the top seven carriers and double what Delta has. With a huge balloon debt payment due in 2009, Delta's motive to take our cash is clear.
Now let's talk productivity. Unionized NWA beats Delta hands down. According to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics, NWA has the lowest number of employees per aircraft at 82. The industry average is 101. Delta has 107 employees per aircraft, and they are basically nonunion. NWA employees historically have always been the most productive in the airline business. Who said unions hurt business?
As for the NWA pilots, the Minnesota public needs to know that the union's merger committee adjusted its proposal three times to get a deal and the Delta pilots never budged from their position. At the seven-year point only 300 original NWA pilots would be left in the top 2,000 pilots. Delta pilots would be flying all the international widebody airplanes. That is why the talks broke down.
We NWA line employees do not want Delta and we do not need Delta. Only the NWA management team does.


Another fair deal

keenster

sailingfun

Only a portion of Pan Am was purchased. The other half of Pan Am was purchased by American who did not offer employment to a single Pan Am pilot. See my post on another thread.

sailingfun

Keenster, Try and get a few facts correct. Delta has no balloon Debt payment due in 2009. Pure fiction. Delta's cash on hand is about the same as NWA's not half. Delta also has a 1 billion dollar line of credit that can be drawn down. Debt to Equity is very close at both airlines however NWA faces a much larger fleet replacement cost in the next few years. Delta also has a lower cost per seat mile despite paying their employees more in almost every category. That info comes straight from each companies respective 10Q reports. You can use google to verify it all. Here is Delta's liquidity position from the 1Q 10q report word for word followed by NWA's.

"As a result Delta ended the quarter with an unrestricted liquidity position of $3.6 billion. At the end of the March quarter we are well within the required range of all of our financial covenants."

"At March 31, 2008, NWA had cash and cash equivalents of $3.2 billion, unrestricted short-term investments of $40 million, and borrowing capacity under an undrawn credit facility of $117 million, providing total available liquidity of $3.3 billion."

DAL4EVER

Well this is a first for me. Keenster, a union man, arguing why there should be fewer employees and more work for the current ones. I will preface this by stating I'm a union pilot and been on strike once before for ALPA so this is not a slam at unions. However, NWALPA didn't really do much to save the mechanics when they went on strike only to be replaced by a non-union workforce and have much of the work farmed out to third party, foreign companies. The unions at NWA didn't stop Steenland and his army from decimating the labor work forces in numbers.

The reason NWA claims fewer employees is because they have outsourced much of the ground handling and gate handling to third parties including their regional partner Pinnacle. DAL has done some of this, but not nearly on this epic scale. Quite frankly, I'm glad we have a strong maintenance department and our gate folks are DAL employees. High productivity doesn't necessarily translate into harder working employees. It just means fewer are doing more. DAL usually has 2-4 people working per gate counter. I have seen one often times during previous commutes at the NWA gates. Long lines and an inability to handle lengthy requests resulted in passengers who felt that there was no customer service attempt on NWA's part.

While DAL has shed many jobs in the past few years, they have added jobs in areas like TechOps (a huge profit center for us), gate and ticket counters, F/As and pilots. And just when I thought you might want to do less for more. Nice curve ball.

DAL4EVER

Keenster,

While I am no expert on the Pan Am deal (I was a 2001 hire) I have flown with many Pan Am guys when previously based in NYC. DAL acquired the European network and shuttle ops. They acquired the A310 and 727s from Pan Am. However, since they did not acquire the 747s or the Pacific operation they could not take in all pilots. I'm not sure how the merger was done but many of the Captains I flew with were hired at Pan Am in 1987-1988 and were A300 drivers. I don't know what factors were at play since it was a partial acquisition but ask UAL how the 747 guys and pacific operation was merged?

rvr350

Keenster,

So there's someone other than you that feel being victimized by DAL mgmt and DALPA? Maybe there's at least one on your side of the fence as well from previous "mergers" and "acquisitions", along with a much bigger number now at USAir/AWA debacle.

We know NWA is the leanest, most cash reserved airline in the whole industry right now. We're not denying that. However, have you ever thought that today's darling may be tomorrow's headline for Ch.11? We've all seen it happen, and we will see it again. (Not that i wish any ill thought towards any of my brethrens)

All i'm saying is that, we're not perfect. And we will continue to make mistakes as a union as we work with our mgmt to get this thing cleared up. But we need to start working together NOW, instead of reciting history lessons to each other. You have your rights as a voting member within your union to voice your opposition to this merger, and we have ours that supports a fair deal, and please, stop saying who's throwing who's under the bus. I am more concerned about our future as a whole together, say 30 years down the road. The last thing I want is to fly with someone that bi!chs all day long about how he/she feels screwed by this mess. We as pilots can be the most productive, or unproductive workforce in the company.

Fly safe.

2themoon

Then there was the two separate United Airline acquisitions of Pan Am assets. United was only slightly better then American in bringing along Pam Am pilots.

B757200ER

AA didn't acruie any PAA assets. They were almost completely acquired by UAL and DAL. All AA did was buy/lease a few DC-10s before PAA got into financial trouble. No assets---no pilots.

To give kudos, DAL and UAL did take some PAA pilots; if memory serves, about 250-300 for UAL and 660 for DAL. UAL got L1011s/DC10s/747s/747SPs, DAL got 727s/A310s.