Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
Technology and the capabilities of Delta's current management team make Delta almost uniquely able to create a virtual airline within an airline,
IF they choose to do so.
There is nothing in our contract which would prevent everything being "Delta" but the pilots.
Effectively the Pinnacle pilots already have a contract within our contract.
You are right that has been tried. Part of my musing have been based on Delta / Pinnacle management's dream sheet. If executed, then Pinnacle would meet the triggers for a Single Carrier petition. Should that happen, then it is something we should consider.
Certainly this is poor political soil and I've plowed it before with ASA & Comair. I supported the PID requesting ALPA to employ it's merger policy which earned me the enmity of many Delta pilots. At the same time I advocated clearly communicating the common sense solution of a staple and refraining from hiring Mike Haber to sue ALPA when things went sideways. Of course that made the hardliners at the regionals angry. So I'm for unity. When I preach unity it seems
both sides unify against me
I do not fully understand why we divested our regionals only to start investing in them again. Probably just to reset in a fashion not unlike what happened in the mainline bankruptcies. From a labor perspective we should be fighting the creative destruction process ... and I think you and I see that the same way.
Just to throw an elbow off the top rope to the deceased equine here, the only thing that's different WRT Pinnacle that I can see is the fact that DL management signed something without our MEC. I share that concern with you. But they didn't sign anything that superseded anything else in our CBA. They basically "negotiated" for scraps directly without us, but they were scraps we separated from our negotating paradigm in the first place. 450 is 450. Who fights it out for those 450 may change, and even if PCL somehow uniquely "locked in" their share of that 450 for 7 years, I think we all know we're not on track union or membership wise to become DCI free in 7 years anyway.
As for TW negotiating directly with DL for what are essentially new hire positions, how is that any different than if DL management negotiated directly for guaranteed interviews with ERAU or WMU or the USANG? Again, I don't like that it happened like that, but I'm not seeing one ounce of additional threat beyond what DL already dealt with WRT ASA/Comair and what AA dealt with WRT Eagle and USAir with Piedemont, etc etc etc.
As for the bolded part above, are you saying we have no scope, and that PCL could fly 320's, 737's, 88's, 90's and 71's for DL right now? If they could do that, why not 767's, 777's, 330's and 747's? If PCL somehow got the "keys to the kingdom" and we're locked out helplessly with no ownership to DL flying, why are we even here?