Originally Posted by sailingfun

My quality of life and the quality of life of all the pilots I know is vastly improved from post bankruptcy and some sections of the contract such as reserve are light years ahead of when I was hired over 30 years ago. The forum here seems to perpetuate that we are going backward. We are not. There has been a constant stream of improvements. The question becomes how little should the average pilot fly at Delta. It’s basically back to pre chapter 11 levels now. At what point does it start to handicap the ability of the company to grow.
Remember when it seemed like every post was about the great deal at SWA and all their growth. Nobody however wanted to discuss how SWA could grow into any market they wanted. The answer was simple. They had a large cost advantage. They built the bulk of their growth on 120 an hour Captains and flying to FAR’s. When they lost a big chunk of that advantage due to cost cutting at other airlines, their costs soaring and FAR 117 what has happened to their growth? As they regain that cost advantage the last couple of years what is their growth trajectory been?
I want a great contract but when I see guys like NotEnuf post how they work 7 days a month average and go 45 days at a time without working at all and in other threads complain to high heaven about the terrible contract forgive me if I am a bit of a non believer. When I see 3 year Captains like MikeF16/Hans Solo making 300k and posting like it’s the worst job they ever had I get skeptical. I recently flew a trip where one of the copilots showed up late screaming about being assigned the trip and how the reserve process sucked. He then stated he needed a leg because he had not flown in the last 60 days!
I want to be compensated well and be treated well by the company. I do however expect to actually work for that compensation. I am greatful every day for this job. It has done amazing things for my family. If 12 years ago you had told me where we would be today I would have laughed in your face. If I had posted on the forum back then where we would have ended up today there would have been hundreds of post saying not a chance in hell.
I guess I find life happier if I embrace the good rather then obsess on every perceived injustice.
If we as pilots at Delta really wanted to go after a injustice we would dedicate 75% of the value of this contract to trying to restore some benefits to pilots who truly got hammered on in the chapter 11 process. The pilots still here today have made a amazing recovery. Many past pilots are not as lucky.