Originally Posted by TED74

Total vacation value is also worth looking at… and the numbers don’t even account for our inability to be paid for touching trips, or be guaranteed additional time off before vacation, or where the allocated vacation weeks fall in the year.

Something that doesn’t jump out at a casual glance at the comparison document is how many airplanes we operate at the top pay rate. Unless I’m mistaken, and unless you’ve had a table saw accident, you can count on your fingers and toes how many airframes we have that pay top rate (16). United has TEN TIMES the number of top-rate airframes (164).

I don’t have it in front of me but I don’t think the comparison models a typical career progression. Wide body access as a newbie through age 65 is so much greater at so many other carriers, that “beating them” with our 737-800 rate is laughably irrelevant in the bigger picture.

So…our JVs supposedly give us a competitive cost advantage, we’re being paid at 3-year old inflation-destroyed rates, our non-unionized mechanics and flight attendants presumably save Delta expenses over their unionized counterparts at other carriers, we have the longest and most onerous seat locks in the business, until recently our newbies paid for their own uniforms and hotels, we don’t burn any EC or FC seats on domestic deadheads unless they can’t be used for revenue or pax upgrade, we rarely get domestic meals catered, we make our own deadhead reservations, we have possibly the worst IT interfacing in the business, we’ve cut every department to the bone to reduce expenditures and shift workload to the pilots, our self-insured health care premiums and coverage are horrendous (and worsening), we’ve slashed expenditures on FC passenger meals and drinks, we’re apparently serving canned wine (while wasting none on deadheading crew members), we have a magical refinery like no other, we haven’t paid holiday pay or otherwise incentivized workers with pay multipliers, our reduced-rate employee confirmed travel rates are often more than the street price, we usually can’t use our “free” travel passes for lack of availability and our own metal doesn’t go where we really want to go anyway, AND most importantly (?), we have a balance sheet that the others supposedly envy. Oh, and we wear magnificent hats.

I’ve heard pilots will be attracted to us over others because of our balance sheet; can someone explain how that’s helping me right now? Did our peers just eat their shorts on bankrupt JV partners like we did?

Kinda seems like there’s room for us to either fix all of that crap, or expect to ratify a B+/A- contract pronto. Why in the absolutely duck do we accept middle of the pack when we supposedly have all of these built-in efficiencies and cost savings?