Originally Posted by
Tracker
Contract law is very grey. The one problem Delta will have is they knew Compass was closing before the pandemic, yet they never worked on a flow down agreement with another carrier. Then the pandemic hit. Instead of creating a new flow down, they decided to send out warn notices and then furlough notices. This is acting in bad faith.
The union called them out on the over utilization in violation of scope this fall. They know they are going to lose this case in arbitration. Now that they need the aircraft due to recovery, they have come up with a plan flow up/down with EDV. The questions Delta will have to answer is why now and not last year to create a flow down. Why did they send out furlough notices and not create a flow down agreement first.
There is also a problem with the 35 aircraft from Compass; they are over the contracted allowable MTOW in the PWA. Compass could operate the heavier aircraft on their certificate, but I don't think this is permitted per the PWA now that Compass does not exist.
The problem with the RLA and arbitration is they do favor the corporations due to commerce. I guess we will see.
Pretty much sums it up. Good post.
I think flow-up will likely happen at Endeavor regardless of the 35 RJs. The pilot hiring shortage will be back sooner than we think and they like cheap (cheap for Delta to implement) carrots to hire at the regionals.
Flow down, on the other hand, is pretty much worthless without
MUCH stronger language.
I don't blame 9E ALPA one bit. From their perspective, this is a slam dunk. The industry as a whole suffers if this agreement passes arbitration, but I don't expect 9E ALPA to fall on the sword when Delta can easily run to another carrier. This is just another flavor of reginal whipsaw, except this time it affects mainline jobs as well.