Originally Posted by
Enemyofthestate
2015 is the earliest I can go - I'd love to be gone now. I hope you are correct on the latter, although I heard there was a very cursory study done to validate this MEC's preconceived notion (shared by management) that it will never be economically viable to fly at the mainline. Of course with a sea change in the make up of this MEC it might be seriously evaluated.
Nearly 20 years ago (early 1993) I was displaced off my (bottom) MD88 Capt. seat when DAL sold their DC9's and all the more senior DC9 guys came to the 88. Then DAL gave all that DC9 flying to Com Air and ASA to fly with their brand new RJs. I called DALPA to ask What the Fark are they doing, giving OUR flying to CA and ASA to fly with JETS?? I ranted;
"WHY AREN'T WE FLYING THOSE JETS??!"
The answer I got from DALPA was, "You don't want to fly those little jets, Capt. would only pay $50/hr, and that's less than what the L1011 Engineers make! We CAN'T have Captains making LESS than engineers!"
We had just furloughed for the first time in the history of DAL, I said, "You're right, I don't want to fly it (I was displaced back to the 757 F/O seat) but I'll bet all those FURLOUGED guys would LOVE to fly it!"
7 years later (2000) I'm at In Command, with Leo the CEO speaking to our class, one of the guys asked about why we can't fly the RJ's at mainline. Leo's answer was, "We can't afford to have you fly them, even at their current pay rates, because we also pay you 30% override, in benefits..."
This was about a year before 9-11, and well before our 42% pay cuts and loss of pension. In bankruptcy I was sure we could finally wrangle back some of our outsourced flying, since our pay rates were reduced 42%, and that pesky 30% override was basically gone.
But...once again, DALPA's attitude was, "You don't want to fly those little jets." and again, we had guys out on furlough who would have LOVED to have been flying those little jets.
I don't know what DALPA's problem is, maybe it's arrogance, but a jet is a jet, and a job is a job. I see no reason why we shouldn't be flying those jets. If it says DELTA on the side, it should be flown by Delta Pilots...or so I would think.
It's too expensive to have 'mainline pilots' flying RJ's ???
Really??
What about the expense of having 8 different CEO's and management teams, for our 8 different DCC's?? And 8 different scheduling depts. and 8 MX depts. and 8 different training depts, etc.??
I think the only way to 'fix this' is if all 8 of our DCC's get together and file for Single Carrier Status, and get included in our contract and onto our SL.
But, would DALPA support that?