Originally Posted by TED74

I don’t know anyone who drags feet to make a point, even though we all know Ed hates pilots (which is irrelevant). What those of us who understand business decisions are doing is providing the services for which we were hired to provide. I fly the contract, and frankly, I fly it rather well. I just don’t do things pro-bono for Delta - I save my philanthropy for ethical organizations and communities who do good in the world. Delta has shown me they are not that.

Delta has dozens of mechanisms to better position the operation for disruptions. Many of them revolve around only flying so many hours as they have manning AND sufficient reserves to support. When they make the business decision to save on proper manning or try to capture revenue with added risk and cost, they do so at their pleasure. I’m just not going to donate my personal time to bandaid a poorly run/trained/manned/paid/led scheduling operation that goes out of its way to exploit its “family members”, ignore established precedent and ignore contractual provisions they supposedly negotiated in good faith. Remember that every quid had its pro, so we’ve paid for provisions we are now being unilaterally and illegally denied.

I also understand that were I to “do em’ a solid” and go above and beyond what I’m contracted to do, I would be furthering a business model that seeks to have fewer pilots in every category than is otherwise necessary. I would delay the movement of junior pilots into my desirable category, and delay seniority progression of every pilot junior to me. And since I am not yet in the category I hope to achieve some day, I know that every pilot senior to me who goes outside the contract to enhance efficiency also delays my progression as well.

Those of you without the fortitude to hold your contractual ground can do this job as you wish. We’ve all gotta decide which team we’re playing on, because I can guarantee you the two are mutually exclusive. You’re either doing what’s good for your union brethren, or you’re doing what’s good for the fourth floor. There’s nothing in between.

Originally Posted by tennisguru

I texted the CA a bit later. Rerouted FO was ecstatic because he was getting home sooner with a bunch more pay. Not sure about the pilot who got the rest of the rotation, but that's also just the nature of bidding reserve.

I've learned one key thing since my time here: the company almost never puts my interests ahead of the interests of the company. Therefore, it is my job to look after my interests first and foremost, because no one else is. When I am at work, or dealing with work (reserve), these are my order of priorities (outside of not crashing/following SOPs/losing my job):

1. My personal physical needs (rest, food, bathroom)
2. Time with my family (making commute flights, not volunteering to help scheduling out by self-acknowedging assignments or showing up before I am notified and required to)
3. The needs of the other pilot I am flying with
4. The needs of the FA's I am working with
5. The needs of commuting pilots or FAs
6. Getting the passengers safely and as close to on time as I am capable of, given needs 1-5 are met
7. The needs of any other frontline employee (rampers, gate agent, etc)
8. The needs of any other Delta employee.

The vast majority of the time, given priority #1 is met, then #2-8 are all accomplished by doing my job safely and effectively. The company, scheduling, the pax, we're all happy to be pulling into the gate on time. I won't say never ever ever, but rare is the time that I will sacrifice a higher priority to meet a lower one.

So yeah, if scheduling has not notified me, and I'm at the gate, I'm going to tell them 2 hours to get there whenever they finally call me. At a minimum to fish to see if they'll pull the rotation and improve my chances of being home more (priority #2). This happened another time, and they stuck with the assignment, so I didn't take the full 2 hours. Ended up showing up around 45 minutes afterward after grabbing a bite to eat and we were back on time by the last flight of the day.