Originally Posted by
hockeypilot44
Yep. I figure the company will offer something like 20 percent raise up front, higher vacation credit, 100 seaters allowed at the regionals, and a no-furlough clause to assure us we will keep our current jobs. If we vote for it, we might never furlough, but Delta won't hire again for 15 years even with all our retirements coming up. Remember, there's a lot of pilots retiring in the next ten years that could use the money. I would expect them to vote yes to the above proposal. It's a smart business decision on their behalf even if it does screw every pilot in the future. It has been proven over and over again that everyone is out for himself no matter what the consequences.
It makes for a good conspiracy but I'm not ready to write off the senior guys as a bunch of back stabbing traitors like that. Maybe a few here and there, but definately not the majority and absolutely not the majority of the group over all.
Guys that would do something like that are outnumbered by those would be harmed by it more than helped, and I don't think most would be that trecherous in the first place.
If it were that simple, we would vote to invert the pay scales and/or the seniority list instead, giving the demographics in the middle a slightly larger bump. Wouldn't that be a "smart business decision"? There is no intelligence at all in a pilot using that kind of logic.
Sell out everyone else by gutting even more scope for a raise that still puts him well under a profitable low cost competitor with 100% scope?
For anyone to even consider being such a back stabbing traitor to the profession in general and their fellow pilot group in particular, the rewards would have to be staggering to even consider. There is just not that much value in a 100 seater for management to offer to make such a betrayal palatable. Even if they did, the level of support would progressively be less than a majority in the first place. And I don't think most guys in the "retirement zone" are that trecherous in the first place. Even if they were (which they aren't) it would never get past a vote and the fact that it was attempted would be a catalyst for an "equal and oppositite" attack against their demographic by others that would benefit from pillaging the time value of money in their remaining years.
Its a battle of diminishing returns from the opening salvo with no chance of "victory" even if you somehow define "victory" as gutting the entire profession and your pilot group in particular for a one time raise in the retirement zone.
Have some faith in your fellow pilots. We have to have eachother's backs here. The biggest threat will be management, old guard ALPA and pressure from national to vote for a crappy TA or your NC will quit or you'll get parked for 5 years, etc. That is our enemy here, not senior pilots.