First, I would say quit arguing like a child. We can disagree on a point without me thinking I am perfect. Do you think you are perfect because you disagree with me.

This whole Status Quo thing is the most misunderstood concept. Status-Quo is the contract. So there is never any prohibition against following the contract. Individuals can exercise their rights under the contract any time they want, so can the company. What is prohibited is "illegal concerted activity". That means you cannot try to pressure the company or individuals from exercising their contractual rights by some type of organized activity, whether the union is organizing it or not.

So when you say establish a new Status Quo the only way to do that is to write a new contract. You can't just decide at some point to unilaterally change the contract because of some changed circumstance. Under the RLA there is only one time that you are able to engage in concerted activity. That is when you are in Section 6 negotiations, the NMB has released you from mediation, and the thirty day cooling off period has expired. That is it.

Now back to the original point. Did Delta pilots fly excess green slips that prevented furloughed pilots from being recalled. The answer to that is absolutely "NO!!!!". Full stop. If you claim otherwise, you need to provide some documentation, because I tracked that stuff monthly as I was deeply involved in designing the scheduling system that was negotiated in 2004. We were grossly overstaffed from 2002-2004 and there were very few green slips given out.

There are two types of green slips given out. One is when you are chronically understaffed and they are given out regularly to fill in shortfalls in reserve coverage. We have seen many of these types of green slips this summer, but that is the first time you have seen that in the last 3 years. When the company is giving out these green slips regularly, they will bid out positions or hire more pilots because it is grossly more expensive to have green slips fill up a month rather than have an extra pilot at straight pay.

The other type of green slip is a temporary shortage caused by special events; thunderstorms, snow, hurricane, etc. etc. These types will never trigger a need for more staffing because it is not cost effective to have pilots sitting around for months and months to only fill in every once in a while. They will fill these flights somehow. If they don't have green slips, they will inverse assign pilots. If they can't inverse assign, they will reroute other pilots. So in this case, having a green slip only determines who gets this extra flying. A green slip lets someone volunteer, while the other two force the flying on whoever gets tapped for it.

As I said before, the only time when any significant number of green slips were assigned was in the summer of 2005. We had negotiated a new scheduling and bidding system (PBS) and we new that this would decrease our head count by hundreds of pilots. Since pilots were still retiring, we knew we would be short in the summer of 2005 and then overstaffed again in the Fall of 2005 when the new scheduling rules kicked in. We still recalled pilots all through 2005 until bankruptcy, but we made a deliberate choice to run lean through the summer so we would not have to recall a pilot and then furlough him again.

NWA had pilots that were double furloughed, including Caplinger, and to this day they talk about like it happened yesterday. In fact, the whole DPA started simply because Caplinger could not get over it.

So you can criticize that choice, most pilots that hear the rationale agree that it is worse to double furlough than it was to stretch out the summer like we did.

The facts are, we were overstaffed all through 2002-2004, there were very few green slips that went out, and if no one put in a green slip the company would simply cover the flights with inverse assignments and reroutes. Those are the facts. This has nothing to do with perfection, this has to do with facts that exist.

You were furloughed, that must have sucked badly. I wasn't so I can't really know how you felt but I can imagine. However, that doesn't give you the right to make stuff up because you were angry. People cared about the furloughs, we gave a lot of money to ensure they had medical coverage and a loan fund to take care of people. We tracked manning month by month and scrutinized manning. We went back to the arbitrator and got him to order a recall schedule established even when Delta was grossly overstaffed. We considered the impact on furloughs on every decision we made.

We pursued every avenue that was available to us legally and went way, way beyond what was required of us. Despite their being very few green slips, the ones that were assigned were simply a matter of who gets the flying. Could senior pilots volunteer for it or would junior pilots have it forced on them?

So all this talk about Status Quo and a no green slip campaign are the result of your understandable frustration with being furloughed. If it makes you feel better to attack your fellow pilots with no basis then you are free to do so. The facts are that not one furloughed pilot was held back from recall by green slips. You can call me names but you can't change the facts.