Originally Posted by full of luv

Not only this but in 2001 when furloughs did happen to all the majors, Delta treated furloughees remarkably better than the others. I was in reserves with furloughed pilots from all the majors. Delta guys got yield fare passes to non-rev (for a small fee) the entirety of the furlough. AA guys got bupkis and a swift kick to the junk the day after their furlough. Commuters even had a difficult time getting home often after they collected their badge and said sayonara! UAL gave like 30 days of non rev passes but then cut off furloughs. UAL (even if weren't furloughed) would yank your PASS and CASS privileges once you went on MILEAVE for more than 30days. We'd have reservists who had to bum a buddy pass of others to get back home after doing orders and then drills and otherwise gone from UAL more than 30 days.
These were all CORPORATE decisions, in fact I remember being so amazed by AA's harshness that I thought. they must never plan on bringing anyone back because there are going to be some severely ticked off employees in the future if they do.

Delta actually treated the furloughs like they would be back one day, and even access to non rev made many who had to commute to reserve gigs to make ends meet because they had moved to an airline base really appreciated the gesture.

Of course all those corporate mgrs who made those decisions are long gone by now at each company so no telling how the current slate would react but if history ever repeats itself (and I absolutely hope it doesn't) it will be interesting to see what corporate culture each company falls back into. Everybody's happy when things are going good, it takes leadership to take care of people when things are on the downslope.