Originally Posted by
DAL 88 Driver
I'd really like to see you elaborate on that a little more. You say your personal viewpoint is not very far off from mine but you prefer the current method for achieving what you and I both want. How exactly would that work? So far, it has been very ineffective in achieving restoration or even putting us on a vector that has any prayer of achieving restoration. We took a 42% cumulative pay cut to our pay rates just before and during bankruptcy, and 10 years later our pay rates are still 34% below those rates adjusted for inflation. That is VERY little progress. If "proactive engagement" hasn't been effective towards restoration in 10 years, what makes you think it's going to start now?
And don't get me wrong... I'm all for proactive engagement as long as both sides are benefiting relatively equally from it. But when one side is taking extreme advantage of the other, I think it's time (past time) to rethink that.
My disagreement I guess is that I believe we HAVE made significant gains (or recoveries, depending on how long you've been here) in the past 2 contracts and various LOA's. Are we back to the buying power of yesteryear? Clearly not. Are we better off than if we had made the "big ask" in C2012 and ended up mired in the Section 6 process (subjective but a likely possibility IMO) and still living under JPWA rates - along with UAL/AA/USAir whom have all basically piggybacked UP to our level? I say yes.
While not extremely satisfying, the last round did effectively pull the industry up significantly in a time of projected, yet not quite realized, financial success.
Times have changed, and now financial success is no longer projected - it's here and then some. At the risk of sounding like a forum radical, now is the time to make the "big ask." If not now, then it will never happen.
It will be difficult to achieve, but Delta can afford it, and if they act quickly enough might even force the competition up as well (ref the AA industry snapshot in 2016.)
I'm still pondering my survery, and have not hit the submit button yet. However, my number is a lot closer to your 25/10/10 than 4/8/3/3. I don't care if they want to hide it in work rules, rigs, etc so it doesn't actually look so big, but now is the time to recover what was lost in this career.
I meant it when I said a few posts back that I expect Delta pilots to SHARE in Delta's unprecendented success.