Whose problem was that? Ours or the company’s? True leverage is hard to come by in the RLA environment. The combination of batch sizes, mass numbers of pilots submitting blanket slips, our lengthy 23.N and 23.O ladders, and limited crew scheduling resources created a perfect storm of chaos that the company never envisioned. The cost to the company was massive, particularly considering that many of those issues contributed to the system-wide meltdowns that we experienced between 2021 and early 2023.

The scheduling committee, MEC, and DH had one job: sit back and relax. We were in the “time” bucket. The cost to the company and their need to resolve it was growing every day. Instead, the company pulled off a successful gaslighting job by convincing the MEC that it was our problem. They succeeded in getting DH, SK, and the MEC to quickly forfeit the massive leverage we had achieved.

Yes, there were temporary issues with seniority being abrogated, but the cost to us paled in comparison to the company’s cost. Further, if you were senior and were consistently getting upset over junior pilots taking “your” green slip, then you were doing it wrong. The correct action as a senior pilot was to clear your schedule, put in a month-long blanket OOBWS + rolling in-base WS, block the ARCOS number, and sit back and watch the 23M7 payments come in. There was at least one scheduling committee member who I am aware of who was doing that himself.

The key fact that you omitted from your long narrative is that we already had a solution in our hands: 23.W.1.d in our new PWA. Ultimately, having direct API access to DBMS would have enabled the scheduling committee to automate the entire process of detecting and enforcing coverage violations. If the company was paying 23.M.7 payments in only 25% of the cases due previously, then the eventual implementation of 23.W.1.d would quadruple their costs as enforcement nears 100%. Management knew this. It’s why they sought a rushed solution from the MEC.

Undervaluing that leverage was DALPA’s greatest blunder since TA1. In time, it could have been traded for a massive quid of high value to the pilot group. I don’t like to publicly criticize our union or its leaders, but in this case it’s due. It’s time for new leadership.