And yet these horrible ALPA policies have produced the most hiring of any airline going through Chapter 11. Perhaps the most hiring of any legacy airline since 05. Might even be more hiring then SW. We have serious problems with scope. That is true. What you fail to acknowledge and DPA will have to acknowledge once they look at the numbers is that a airline has to have feed.
If tomorrow we could take back every single aircraft flying a Delta passenger do you think we will have a net gain or loss of jobs? If the job count stays neutral will we have a net gain or loss of pay. To many pilots over simplify scope to the point that every RJ is a job lost. That is simply not the case.
There are some feeder markets where flights would continue if we took the flying. There are many other markets where the flights would end because they would not be cost competitive. This is a brutal industry where a few dollars on a ticket price can silence your reservation phones. Now you have lost both the RJ flight and passengers feed to mainline flights. The end result is not good.
Scope has to have a balance regardless of if you like it or not. When we go into the next contract and try and take back scope or even hold the line your going to need solid cost data. Your going to need historical cost data on how much above a competitor you can be and still generate feed. Your going to need very smart people to refute the companies data which will have different numbers then yours. In the end a number will have to be generated on where the break point is regarding seats and range that define what belongs at the mainline and what belongs as feed.
We certainly had that line moved far to the right by John Malone(current DPA supporter) when he allowed the E170/175 at the mainline. That gross weight increase in LOA 46 was in my mind the biggest single failure of scope for Dalpa and the Delta pilots. I don't however have access to the cost data used to approve it.
I do know that with the smaller RJ's we can't operate them within a country mile of the contracted costs and we tried hard to show ways we could and never could come up with a solution. The net result of taking those jobs back no matter how they ran the numbers was always a loss of mainline jobs and a overall pay reduction. You gained some RJ flying in markets that could still sustain the flights at higher costs but lost mainline flying with the drop in feed.
This is why many thing people get absorbed into the union mindset and change from their elected positions. Its because they get a chance to see real data. They see real costs. They see reservation bookings and how quickly they drop off if price is above competitors. They gain a real world understanding that the average line pilot does not. If DPA becomes the union agent for Delta pilots they will go through the same change if they go through a proper due diligence and costing on the contract.
Where is my persona break on scope? Its the E170/175. I believe they should be at the mainline. I think we can operate them and not lose the flying because our costs are to high. Do I have any data to back that up. Not a damn thing. I will however rely on my fellow pilots who are elected to get that data and make the right choices be they Dalpa or DPA.