Originally Posted by acl65pilot

I think this is where the misconception lies. We are not looking for there to be more 737's, though that would be nice. The company needs to have the ability to put the correct jet on the route, I agree with that. My goal is not to make these "RJ's" cost prohibitive. My goal is what you even admit and mention as a possibility. You can maybe get the RJ pilots to change uniforms and now are mainline pilots. That is the goal. One unified pilot group under one list, and one contract. Even you admit that this is a possibility. That is what we are working towards.

I fully admit that there will always be regional airlines. What I am looking to do is roll back the scope on the seat size we allow contract carriers to fly. I do not want to scope by type certificate either. That will be the death nail in our narrow body gauge. We as a group, and looking to get the majority of this flying recaptured and flown by we the Delta pilots.

It is not anger or malice. I place blame on all of us. We continually vote for it. It always is an overall good deal and the scope is the only real thorn. We all decide it is Ok given the gains. It has just been this way for far too long.

As for economic analysis. I believe that many people have been giving it. A lot of the data is skewed, because of how and what we has the parent company pay for with these DCI carriers. The fact is that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on guaranteed margins for these DCI carriers. That is profit that we at DAL could be making with the flying done in house.
I get that we have contracts that in some instances go for another 13 years. I think it would be quite simple to state that once these contracts expire scoped flying would then come back in house.

Is it a lofty goal? Yes, but it is one that needs to be fought. We have for far to long let it be the one issue we will cave in on. As the DC-9 goes away we have no mainline replacement for it. "Nothing works." Well I think that the E-series and C-series are good answers to this. Heck even the CRJ-900 and 1000 would be a good answer to it, if flown by mainline.

I just want to know, and I ask this humbly, "Why is scope not an issue that if fought for tooth and nail."