Timbo,

Your option 3 is by far the best. TIm Caplinger is a good speaker and would make a strong candidate if he chose to run. Being a Status Rep in the Delta MEC would give him a valuable education.

But that's not his point. He'll tell you he was angered by the NWA ALPA's handling of "his" grievance. IMHO, this is as much a vendetta as anything else. He's taken a falsehood, which was spread to increase ... ahem "unity" by unifying Delta pilots against ASA and Comair and expanded that to justify an entirely different representational entity.

Some of Tim's ideas are good and could be used.

The problem for DPA is, and will be (they can't out run it):
(1) The "conflict of interest" has ALWAYS been decided in favor of mainline and has never hampered our bargaining
(2) What has harmed our union is a lack of unity ... pilots have been unwilling to stand and help pilots ... the DPA has not embraced "unity" and really does not seem to understand the concept, at least not as well as ALPA's very minimal understanding of the concept.

Removal of a non existent conflict will reveal no improvement in our bargaining position. ... then pilots will be dissatisfied because CHANGE made things worse. Some will want to return to ALPA, but we will have probably so harmed ALPA in the process of the representational flight that they are less appealing an option than we have now. So then what?

The way forward (we all know this) is to get behind our elected Representatives. Show up, volunteer and talk positively about OUR union. For most of us, we are at our #1 airline choice. We are getting paid at the top of our peer group (not as good as some, but better than most). Could things be better, heck yeah, but lets be smart about how we get there.