Originally Posted by alfaromeo

It was not cavalier at all. When people are on furlough, most of them found other jobs. They may have been at NetJets, or ASA, or working for their father's insurance company. It is cavalier to make them have to decide to quit their job when you have no clue as to whether or not they will have solid employment for more than six months. We took a shot at avoiding bankruptcy in 2004 but no one was under the impression that it was a sure thing. We knew that staffing efficiencies would allow Delta to operate with about 700 fewer pilots in 2006 than they needed in 2005. So everyone involved, the MEC, management, the administration, the negotiators tried to find the path that would provide the most assurance to all the pilots, both the ones that were recalled in 2005 and those that were yet to be recalled.

Northwest furloughed pilots twice. United furloughed pilots twice. US Airways furloughed pilots twice. TWA and Pan Am all furloughed twice. You tell me, would you want to take a recall with a 6 month guarantee of employment? Northwest went bankrupt in September 2005, the same day Delta did. They furloughed pilots in November 2005 and kept furloughing until February 2006. It was almost 200 pilots. They were still bringing back pilots from furlough in 2008, three years later. The most junior pilot furloughed had been on property for 8 months from his last furlough.

When bankruptcy hit we lost the entire 737-200 fleet. We were overstaffed by hundreds of pilots. If we had 600-700 more, what in the world would make you think they would not furlough those pilots? Seriously, are you daft?

It was not cavalier at all. What is cavalier is that we should "hope" that management would not furlough. Did you see what bankruptcy was? What in the hell would give you "hope" that management would hold on to hundreds and hundreds of extra pilots that they didn't need? So you want some pilot to quit his job that is feeding his family on some vague "hope" that everything would work out well? Are you cruel or just ignorant?

Unless you are completely insane, you would see how the most caring and kind thing you could do was not force people into making these life altering decisions with no security behind it. Everyone was quite happy that once a pilot was recalled at Delta, they had a job and they weren't just used for a few months and then tossed aside again. Yet you want these pilots to live on some vague "hope". I wonder if the Kroger's accepted "hope" when those double furloughed pilots needed to feed their kids.

Get rid of your anger and use your brain for once in your life. Or maybe you are just a cruel person that likes to play with people's lives like they are pawns.