Originally Posted by
sailingfun
If you don't understand the difference between aircraft and pilot block hours there is no way to explain the rest.
I think he's saying this doesn't protect us from them putting a 380 against our 757. Which is of course true.
Its funny that so much of the "protection" from this is found in projected/planned aircraft orders and current fleet plans. We can in no way ever use that as protection. We have to look at this in its worst case scenarios. They could sign a huge 380 order the day after we ratify this, or any day after that, and DAL would stand to lose mass quantities of marketshare. We could put mostly ER's on EU flying for the better part of 2 decades as AF/KLM only up-gauged and there wouldn't be a thing we could do about it. They could get 2/3 to perhaps 3/4 the EASK's and we'd just have to eat it.
Its also being sold as downside protection, but the opposite is true. If there was a huge demand drop, DL/AF/KLM could significantly reduce by further upgauging their AC while downgrading ours even while both pulled down. That would leave DL pulling down the majority of the seats. That's stupid fr us to do in a "metal neutral" agreement.
And, once again, WTH is up with that little suitcase nuke that allows the MEC chairman to single handedly allow a foreign alter ego with the DL name in DL paint staffed with cut throat foreign pilots? Is that even a legal line item WRT the ALPA policy manual? Can a potentially massive change like that happen with one man's signature? Or would they "interpret" the TA passage to be an evergreen consent for unlimited foreign alter ego carnage to our careers?
Some are trying to sell this as a positive claiming it adds the protection of the MEC chairman as a bulwark against rogue company actions, but that's only true if our current contract would permit the company to unilaterally create Delta branded foreign alter egos. There is no way that is the case or they would have done it long ago.
So why is this POS clause in there, and why are some guys intentionally misrepresenting it to get it to pass? This is the biggest deal in the entire TA and it was completely glossed over by the NC's little bullet points.