Originally Posted by
JungleBus
Moreover, they're about the *first* airline to honor a flowup without legal action forcing it, the previous examples at Eagle/AA and ExpressJet/CO were very messy. DAL honored the flow agreement that NW signed, and continued to honor it for those on property when they sold CP & XJ. Whatever my feelings on Delta's handling of DCI, their sticking to their word on flow agreements made a strong impression on me.
Unfortunately, the fact that there are so many flows at the moment means there aren't a ton of slots for off the street hires - thus, the astronaut selection process. I think that'll change later in the year as there will be quite a few months with no flows and a ton of off the street hiring, certainly a whole lot more than they were talking a few months ago.
True enough. To a point.
Its important to note the actual legal arrangement of these flows. They are not and never were "owned" by the regional pilot groups in question. They are 100% owned and controlled by DAL, inc and DALPA. DAL, inc could unilaterally end the flow today, on their own, with no input from DALPA and certainlly no input from CPZ. However that would trigger a significant reduction in already flying large RJ's. Unless DALPA gave that up, which is doubtful, then there would be a price to cancel the flows.
So while its true that they honored them and no one had to sue/arbitrate to force it, the reason is existing contractual language in the DL pilot contract. Its no secret DL hates hates hates being forced to take pilots outside their particular selection process. And no regional "mainline style" interview is ever going to be the same thing to them. Ever.
While they freely chose to honor the flows at the grandfathering level, they also were adamant on ending the flows in the future. They along with DALPA still own the flow completely, not the regionals. And there are mainline contractual penalties for cancellation (related primarily to the flow down provision) that make it expensive to cancel. They could, but they aren't going to.