I have not heard DALPA touting increased jobs as a result of the 717 deal. From what I can gather ALPA admits the changes in the contract will cost jobs but will hopefully be offset by early retirements. Since thay are admitting that with the “planned” early outs we will be pilot neutral I would expect them to be clearly explaining the number of growth position we can expect from the 717s as well as the MD90s and 737-900s. Since they are not this leads me to believe that the total result of aircraft deliveries and retirements will not result in any noticeable increase in pilot staffing.

To make a better decision on whether this TA is a good deal or not it would be nice to have an idea where Delta’s fleet count will end once the dust settles. If the 717s end up being mostly replacement aircraft as the MD90 have been, and the 737-900s are slated to be, this could end up in a fleet count not much more that the “767” mainline aircraft trigger Delta needs to exceed to start converting 70 seaters to 76 seaters. In order to convert all 70 seaters to 76 seat aircraft would require a fleet of 801 aircraft. The current mainline fleet is 720 so Delta would have to increase its mainline count by 81 (over an 11% increase in the fleet) aircraft to take advantage of the 3-1 language thanks to our current grievance settled contract language.

There are 20 DC9s that will be parked and Delta has already said it will be parking A320s, 757s, and 767s going forward so even without adding any additional 319s or MD88s that might be retired it already appears hard for Delta to take advantage of our current contracts 3-1 language. Also, note that Delta would have to get out of payments and contract on the 70 seat aircraft and park all of them in order to do this.

The company has already tried successfully to go around our contract and increase the number of 76 seat aircraft by putting orders on the books to take the mainline fleet above 767 but not accounting for the planned parking of other aircraft. This resulting in a grievance where DALPA allowed Delta to keep that aircraft that were in violation but they had to agree to actually abide by the contract language going forward. Shortly after this Delta again violated section 1 of our contract by purchasing several aircraft over the weight limit allowed in our contract for Delta Private Jets. After pressure from the pilot group there was another grievance filled resulting in a cease and desists for these aircraft. Now out of the blue these aircraft show up in the TA as permitted aircraft types.

Delta clearly violated the PWA and agreed to settle two grievances on scope with no monetary penalty, yet now we are giving back the language that was violated on both issues for no reason or monetary reward. By allowing Delta to start buying 76 seat aircraft and removing the requirement to increase the mainline fleet above “767” we are guaranteeing that the mainline fleet will not increase significantly if at all above this amount. This does not even take into account not having to park the 70 seat aircraft at the same time. We are also agreeing to outsource 5 addition aircraft that Delta already violated our contract with once before.

What is the benefit of our contract if we continually roll over on blatant violations of it? The ball is in our court, our current contract language is the companies fleeting opportunity.

vpr