Originally Posted by
flyallnite
Are you talking about the APA that walked around with green SCOPE badges in the mid 90's, taking the no RJ position, only to cave after the PEB? Unlike DALPA, APA actually had a prohibition against RJ's, which they did indeed sell. Those of us who rode the 'B' scale can thank APA for that little gem too. APA was the first to take the massive pay hit, voluntarily, after 9-11. That set the stage for our first huge giveback to the company, after which they took more, then our pension. APA has been no friend to the careers of Delta Pilots.
Oh yeah. No friends at APA not IMO. As for the rest of this thread. Congrats to improving regional contracts: long overdue. Congrats if you are coming to mainline carriers. I hope the good times last. We can rehash history a hundred ways. When all this was transpiring there really wasn't much 50-70 seat flying but a lot of cities wanted service. For some reason pax thought a jet was "better." Silly solution 50 seat performance limited jets. Then Massive cuts before BK followed by BK and 1113: mainline was a Total mess with survival the overriding concern. IF we had kept all the 50-70 seat flying on mainline at decent rates (mgmt wouldn't bite) there might have been far fewer of those jobs: that's a two edged sword. I don't think DALPA recognized how aggressively management intended to expand use of the small jets. DAL mgmt eventually went nuts with their "self-financing" strategy putting 7 RJ flights a day into places with zero mainline. When 50 seat markets grew to need 70-100 seats they realized they had purchased a 20 year airframe solution (50 seaters) for a 10 year market problem and had a brazillion jets they didn't want. What to do? Whipsaw the crap out of us and get us to contractually fix their problem while thinking we were helping ourselves! ALPA national should have drawn a line in the sand on RJ negotiations long ago: it wasn't their job to create a pay/benefit package that fit under a fee for departure cram down limitation. Maybe every regional group should have walked AND all the mainline pilots should have supported it with actual $$! The real takeaway is management played us pretty well: Never imagine they won't try it again. Too much caffeine.. OFG