Originally Posted by
Drum
Ha, you really said that. I've been commuter my life in the regionals (to NYC) and as a Delta Pilot (ATL, LAX and NYC). I pretty well understand how commuting works. Further, desptie what you said, it is your responsibility to be in position for the start of your trip. Its in the FOM. Your CP will tell you that a thousand times during your probationary meetings. That never goes away. They don't care where you live. All they care about is that you be there for the start of your trip. Simple. Up to you to figure that out. You can be a responsible adult, or play a childs game.
This sounds like a manning problem to me. Why doesn't/didn't EDV staff reserves properly? Trying to get by on a razors margin perhaps to save a few cost bleems? Who was running EDV at the time this went down?
Yes I distill this down to simple fact. EDV pilots don't work for DAL. Our retirees should ALWAYS enjoy a higher priority for non-rev over non-Delta employees when traveling on our aircraft. I think we can get it.
I've been commuting the whole time, to nyc, except for about ~4 years when I lived in a base. Our job is not to be there for the trip, our job is to show up for the commute, give ourselves two chances, it says so right in the FOM. If we don't make it, the NON DISIPLINARY effect is to start removing legs from our pattern (at EDV). It is not the pilots job to solve the staffing problem of the company, which was run by Delta at the time.
If the CP, in a meeting with me and my rep, ever said it was my job to predict the future loads and seamlessly weave my way to work, he would have been wrong. I show up to the airport, I gives it my shots, if the company chooses to pos space me afterwards and displace a couple revenue pax that's on the company. At the time it was 1000 bucks a pop and higher.
Delta, the company that ran EDV and Delta, decided to step on your contract and increase their margins. That wasn't something the union asked for, there was nothing signed. Delta did the data crunch like they always did, and figured out the cost to screw mainline's retirement privilege's were less than the cost to keep buying passenger tickets to NYC or cancelling flights where needed. This happened, they are the facts, and they are not in dispute.
You are trying to point to a want you have in the contract, something that used to be there, and that's good. What's bad is blaming any of this on EDV pilots who didn't ask for it. We wanted more money to either buy our tickets if we wanted (we wouldn't), make the missing legs not hurt so much because the rest of the legs were paid so much, make the legs worth more than the hotel room stay the night before, or SO much money people at said regional could live in NYC sans food stamps. That was our ask. We got shortcircuited by Delta. I don't blame delta pilots for that, I came to work for them. I blamed management. You have no issue with EDV pilots. You have an issue with a couple ex and current EDV pilots calling you out on factual mistakes that you made. Own it, like an adult, and stop being a child.