EXACTLY. every time I look at the #required report, it is less... less and less and less. In fact, it has ALWAYS stayed about 200-500 numbers LESS than my seniority #! So every single AE, I look and I see that I am EXCESS to what the company NOW needs to run the airline. Always 6 months ago I was hoping to be under the wire at my current seniority... and they always move the bar lower!
Sorry Imapilot, but for those of us who for 12 years have watched the company reduce the # of pilots required, always just less than where we sit, we KNOW that we are just one un-voted side-letter away from being furloughed again... just one 757 retirement away... just one 737 being outsourced again to DCI away...
Yes, it's a big thing. Great on the company for being productive, if my #1 concern in life was the value of return on my Delta stock I'd be saying "sweeet!" But my concern is with my flying career-- I'm locked into a position here at Delta by a totally bogus non-portable seniority system that resets me to college grad status if I try to take my 30 years of flying experience and skills and market myself-- I CAN'T "go somewhere else if you don't like it!". I pay a significant chunk of my salary each month to my bargaining agent to PROTECT my fragile position, NOT to make Delta more productive. Each 5 months another AE comes out showing how my position has degraded, and how I am now even closer to the bottom of the pile and even closer to being furloughed as excess. Bah on that! If I was #1 concerned about stock returns, I'd be prosecuting investor initiatives to limit executive compensation to only 20 times the average worker's salary. Someone out there is seriously doing a better job looking out for executive pay and bonuses than my union is doing looking out for my pay and bonuses, and it's worrisome.
OTOH I had some really superb cask ale and brisket tonight, so I'm not entirely bitter
Cask ale... bitter... you see what I did there?