Originally Posted by
Planetrain
747s down (Pacific flying)
767ERs same
767400s same
777s same
A330s more
Airfrance JV
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Old way: 3 year AVERAGE with ability to throw out a year and cure in the 4th
New way: 2 year AVERAGE, no ability to kick out a year
Old way: Over 3 years, AVERAGE must be 48.5%
New way: Every 1 year must be 48.5%, if not, then we get a international widebody hour floor that we never had before
Old way: Asia and South America could shrink to 0 and Europe to near 0 flying (ie 1 Airfrance flight and 1 DL flight is 50%/50%)
New way: When less than 48.5% in Europe, (but never less than 46.5%), DL has to fly 650,000 block hours. Now, DL can't shrink Europe, South America, AND Asia. Some combination must still be there that ensures almost all our historical average of widebody flying. I'll gladly trade the 2% difference between 48.5% and 46.5% in Europe, if it means the other theaters - particularly Asia, in light of Haneda, Korean, and China Eastern - are protected. And if DL flies more than 48.5% in the Airfrance JV and we don't get this widebody block hour floor - then that's better than what we had in the old way, because I never saw the old way hit 48.5%, and we sure waited a looong time to get a grieveance thanks to the 3 year window and cure.
Every way I look at it - the new way is better.
I see you're hung up on the 5% less than current widebody flying today in the widebody floor... Again, old way protection was 0% protected... not the 95% protected we have now. And if I remember right, those widebody hours include 757 transatlantic. When that fleet shrinks/retires, only widebody planes can replace it. And that metric is in hours, so when those replacements arrive, transatlantic ASMs go up. I like that way better.
I think we are both on the same side - we both want strong scope. I just don't see the new contract as a scope sale. I'm counting airframes and haven't seen a reduction (other than whales) since the merger. Looking ahead, don't we have "1"-25 A350s and 25 A330neos on order? If/when they retire the last 8 or so whales, and then if we get 8 or so A350s, net pilots and pay scale, we should be a wash. Anything extra is extra.
Time will tell on the WB count, I really hope that in the next couple of years the trend reverses and we start to see an increase in the number of WB's on property. I'll believe it when I see it.
Granted, the shorter measurement periods are an improvement. I don't think it's accurate to say that we had zero protections in Asia. LOA 13-3 along with our existing generic JV language certainly provided protections against outsourcing and even frequency pulldown in the case of V Australia.
We can throw metrics at each other all day and it won't matter. If at the end of this contract our percentage of international flying has decreased over the Atlantic, then our pilot group will be responsible for allowing it.
The flying is X across the Atlantic, it will vary with time. The key is making sure we don't let our percentage slide from 50% to 48.5 to 46.5 to ???. See the trend line?
I'm not hung up on the 5% global reduction. I am hung up on the fact that there is not any non-compliance language to discourage the company from perpetually breaking our contract, as they've been doing.
I'm also hung up the fact that this contract allows the company to lower the percentage of flying that Delta pilots do across the Atlantic. In the most profitable time in the history of the industry we couldn't maintain our JV percentage.