Dear Fellow Brother Delta Pilots,

There's a ton of emotion going on in everything I've read online, and no obvious fixes for anything that is bothering the NO crowd. Hey, if you want to vote NO, vote NO! All of the complaining and rancor sounds like a squirrel that was stuck in the bird feeder once.

I feel pretty qualified to put my reasons for voting yes. I was furloughed, then subsequently kicked in the balls over and over by the company AND ALPA during the bankruptcy. Yay! I was so disenfranchised by ALPA that I did send in 2 - count 'em- two DPA cards.

My biggest point of contention was the RJ. Delta and ALPA gave our jobs away en masse during a dark period in our history. Through contractual gains and the reality that RJ's suck in general, they are going away, and scope is no longer a major point of contention for me anymore. -Though it could be, just not now.

Three years ago, I sounded like the squirrel in the birdhouse. After our massive sacrifices 12-3-3 sounded grossly inadequate. But my reps told me to be patient, play along, and things will get better. So I did. During this latest contract survey, I wanted two things: 1). Don't change the work rules. My quality of life is outstanding, don't mess it up. 2). Give me a generous raise, and get RID of profit sharing.

So in this T/A, it appears as though ALPA listened to my desires, specifically. -That's a joke, folks. The work rules haven't really changed. Yes, there were abuses of sick leave, and guys were bidding check airman trips so they wouldn't have to fly or could greenslip. Tell ya what. If I was making over 400k per year as a narrowbody FO, this contract would have me screaming mad and spitting bullets, too. But I'm not, and it doesn't. So the work rules don't give me any heartburn.

The profit-sharing thing: I don't particularly like profit sharing. Oh, if the company is doing well, it's great! If not, not so great. You can end up having wild swings in your income from year to year. And although I've been a pretty successful entrepreneur in other ventures, I rather like my airline income to be stable. You and I have absolutely no control over anything that could affect profit sharing. Why take the risk? There's no upside.

So in my infinitesimally small brain, I gave some thought as to what kind of raise I'd like in order to completely get rid of profit sharing. I came up with +/- 25%. And I realize that the company wasn't going to give me a 25% raise no matter what, even if profit sharing no longer exists. But how was ALPA going to deal with me and my lofty goals?

Well, they cut a compromise that suits me just fine. An 18% raise while retaining profit sharing. I don't have a problem with that. You know how earlier I stated that ALPA told me to just go with the program three years ago? By the time this contract is signed, (If it is, not trying to be flame bait here) we will be up 32% in wages in three years. By the time the profit sharing clause kicks in, we'll be up 35%, and by contract end, 38% from where were were three years ago. I like the short term of this contract. Three years from now we could be up over 50% from three years ago. That's huge. It's my humble opinion that you restore the profession in bits and pieces, like we are witnessing now. Not in a grand-slam shot-heard-around-the world. As great as that would be, that's not going to happen.

Now this part cracks me up: For years, were were insanely jealous of SWA wages. We wanted them! On our last signing, we were ****ed-off that it was going to take THREE YEARS to reach 737 parity with SWA. At that same time three years ago, they started negotiations with their company as well. They still don't have a deal, and we're fixin' to exceed their rates by a large margin. As well we should, dammit! But don't get mo wrong, let them get a contract that exceeds ours again, so we can exceed theirs again, ad infinitum.

So in closing, thanks for listening. I know that most on this forum will disagree, and in fact there's a thread wondering if yes voters are a silent majority, because yes voters just aren't posting. Well here you go! And again, if all of the aforementioned reason I mentioned don't work for you, then by all means, vote NO. If this T/A is turned down, it's not the end of the world. We'll just re-group, and maybe get a better deal, or maybe be like SWA and not have to worry about ANY deal for the next three years.

Cheers,

Woofers