[QUOTE=iceman49;2373553]
Originally Posted by
Dirtdiver
700 PAA pilots came over with the acquisition, 286 captains, the rest FOs and FEs. They came with A310s and 727s, so they integrated the captains in at a 12 to 1 ratio starting with the DL 7er captains. The rest were integrated 11:1. DL anticipated continued hiring leading up to the SLI date, which would have made the math work. But hiring stopped, and a small number of the PAA guys ended up on the bottom. No way those bottom guys were '78 hires, unless they were some kind of special case permanent FE/non-pilots.[/QUOTE
I was a 9-78 National DOH, the guys in my class Ended up at Delta as a 89, Lost 11 out of 13 years, and took 3 years to get to their pay rate. I bailed and 6 years later ended up at NWA.
Another reason the seniority numbers should be based on age vs SS numbers.
Notes from court proceedings
In another set of undated handwritten notes, Alger, ruminating over the potential labor conflicts that could emerge out of the integration of Pan Am personnel, wrote, “Long Term potential [for labor strife] put here after the Bad Apples have long since retired.”
Delta had purchased, in the transatlantic routes, the cream of the Pan Am crop; and the pilots who flew those routes were among the most senior at Pan Am. For commercial airline pilots, seniority is everything.
The seniority status of Delta's pilots was protected in the collective bargaining agreement Delta had with the pilots' labor union, the Air Line Pilots Association (“ALPA”).1 As is the custom in the airline industry, that agreement required Delta to place newly hired pilots at the bottom of Delta's seniority list, regardless of the length of cockpit experience the newly hired pilot may have had with other airlines. (For this reason, pilots typically spend their entire careers with a single airline; the switching costs for senior pilots are too high.) However, the senior Pan Am pilots that Delta needed made it clear that they would not leave Pan Am, even if it was in bankruptcy, if they were to be cast down to the bottom of the Delta pilot seniority list. Thus, to close the APA and meet its turnkey objectives, Delta had to negotiate a concession from ALPA that would amend the collective bargaining agreement to let Delta integrate the Pan Am pilots into the Delta seniority list.
The starting point for the integration was the position held by the most senior Delta pilot of whatever aircraft was deemed to be most nearly equivalent to the A-310. Delta deemed its Boeing 767ER (“B-767ER”) to be most equivalent to the A-310 because both were long-haul twin-engine aircraft, although the B-767ER was not cleared for over-ocean voyages.
This resulted in a ratio of approximately twelve to one. Thus, one Pan Am captain was integrated after every twelve spots beneath #590-at #603, #616, #629, #641 and so on.
Thus, once they moved over to Delta, several Pan Am pilots were relegated to cockpit positions, aircraft, and routes less desirable than those they had flown at Pan Am. For example, some 55-year-old Pan Am pilots found themselves flying in positions junior to 35-year-old pilots who had been with Delta their entire career. However, the Pan Am pilots were integrated in seniority order-that is, within the integrated seniority list, and thus, Pan Am pilots maintained their seniority relative to other Pan Am pilots.
In addition to the integration methodology, Delta set two other terms of employment for the Pan Am pilots that are at issue in this case: a ten-year service requirement for fully paid post-retirement medical benefits and a pay scale that increased pay rates from Pan Am levels to Delta levels gradually over three years.
Years ago, Delta management had instituted a ten-year service requirement before Delta would pay the full cost of a non-pilot employee's post-retirement medical insurance premiums. The ten-year service requirement was eventually applied to Delta's pilots when Delta and ALPA entered into a collective bargaining agreement in October 1990. However, in August 1991, the ten-year service requirement was waived to exempt all pilots who were on the Delta seniority list as of August 27, 1991 and had reached age 50 on or before January 1, 1992.
Because the Pan Am pilots were not integrated into the seniority list until November 1, 1991, none of them qualified for this grandfather clause. As discussed above, at the time of the APA, Delta did not permit its captains and first officers to bid down for flight engineer positions after they had reached the FAA-mandated retirement age of 60. Thus, any Pan Am pilots who were over 50 at the time of the APA would not be able to qualify for fully paid post-retirement medical benefits unless they were willing to accept employment in a ground position after they turned 60.
Here, Plaintiffs have shown that Alger, the Delta management representative assigned to investigate and evaluate the Pan Am acquisition, made numerous comments about the age of the Pan Am pilot force, referring to them as “contaminated” and “Bad Apples.”
Delta took full advantage of Pan Am's financial misfortunes, giving Plaintiffs the unenviable choice of joining Delta as second-class citizens or hanging on with Pan Am, which had already filed for bankruptcy. While we sympathize with the pilots who were impaled on the horns of this dilemma, we can find no actionable misconduct by the defendants.
ABDU BRISSON III 489 700 v. DELTA AIR LINES INC | FindLaw
I hope the FAA does not find out I was flying the 767-300ER to Europe in 1991 when it was not legal!
The only pilots stapled on the list were the Professional flight engineers who were not ALPA and did not have pilot bidding rights. No pilots were placed after pilots not hired. When the 727's were retired DALPA was successful in convincing the company to allow the PFE's to bid to pilot seats. They granted a leave of absence to any who wanted to obtain a commercial ticket. To say they were interesting to fly with is a understatement.
All pilots who came over to Delta when the Pan Am assets were purchased came on a voluntary basis. They could bid over to fill the A310 and 727 seats or remain at Pan AM. The seniority was known in advance with the A310 pilots slotted in with the 7ER pilots and the 727 pilots slotted in with the 727's at Delta. The PFE's were stapled at the bottom of the list on the date the purchase was complete. The method of integration was a prenuptial agreement prior to the purchase being finalized.