Originally Posted by
Bill Lumberg
How about the SWAPA model? They seem to really fight for their pilots and get them the highest pay and bennies they can, without bowing to the Regionals thanks to a "conflict of interest." Just tell me there isn't a conflict of interest between the Regional pilots wants and the Mainline pilots' wants. ALPA seems to try to split down the middle, and I AM NOT PAYING money for that. I want all of MY interests sought for, not what a Regional guy wants. I am not paying for him. But, I will give Dalpa one more chance to show my they can get us a GREAT new contract. If the TA is poor, then it will be voted down, and I bet Dalpa will be gone next. I don't care if it takes awhile to get the DPA established, it's better than waiting 4 more years for the next contract with a bad current one. And we know RA and SD want it done sooner than later because of possible continuing consolidation.
SWAPA is certainly the flavor of the moment, but really I'm not sure why. They were perennially under paid which made their management's model that much more effective...they followed ALPA up the ladder by virtue of the DALPA CK2000 dot, and have been able to stay there due to continued profits (at least until recently)...they may very well indeed prove to be the "be all and end all" of unions, but judging by the way they stepped on the heads of the Airtran pilots to eat their young to keep things rolling...I'm not overly optimistic.