alfaromeo

I am not sure I can convince anyone of anything here, because your minds are already made up. What I can do is point to facts. First, most of the concessions made in the last 5 years have been pay and and retirement. Those two affect the most senior pilots to a much greater degree than junior pilots. Second, you can add that in the years prior to 2001, the senior pilots pushed a lot of money into the junior end of the list by increasing the first officers percentage of captain pay and eliminating the B-Scale. That is why the junior Northwest pilots got a much bigger raise than their captains.

So the facts are that the bulk of concessions have fallen on more senior pilots and if you look ten years back to today, you will find the junior end of the list fared much better situated than the senior end.

But that is not what you wanted to hear. What you want to talk about is 70-76 seaters. So let's look at the history. In 2004 we relaxed scope in conjunction with the pre bankruptcy agreement. We had two choices, go to bankruptcy or relax scope, it was pretty plain. At the time, many pilots said "go to bankruptcy, it can't be worse than this". Great advice.

So now we are is bankruptcy. Scope is going to change, either through negotiation or through a judge's order. What do you do? Manage the change or have is shoved down your throat. Again, we saw a lot of people say "the judge won't do that." In the case of the NWA flight attendants, the Comair pilots, and everyone else that tested that theory, the judge said "Watch this." More great advice. Just think, if we had our contract rejected and US Air had been able to take over, 1000-1500 of our Troy Kane and senior pilots would be out of work now. That victory was because we retained important scope provisions even in bankruptcy. Scope isn't always about 70 seat aircraft.

So if you want to frame it as senior pilots screwing junior pilots go right ahead, you will do that anyway regardless of what I say here. I guess I would just ask to look at the big picture and don't feel like the lone ranger when considering that life hasn't gone exactly smoothly in the last few years. Any change in scope was made with a gun to our heads. What slowplay is referring to is how this scope issue has become so emotional that it is devoid of facts.

First, look at the history of the last two scope concessions. After 2004, Delta was poorly managed and headed to eventual Chapter 11. Our flying shrunk but we still had recalls due to the early retirements. After 2006, Delta was well managed and we offered recall to all pilots and hired 700 more. Your career has much more to do with the management of the airline rather than these smaller jets. American is pointed out as the king of scope clauses, but no one wants to mention how much their mainline has shrunk in the last 5 years. Shouldn't they have E-175's and E-190's aplenty on their property? Isn't that how it should work out if you have a good scope clause? Last I looked they have 0.

Second, since 2006 we have tightened scope at every chance. The JCBA allowed less 76 seat aircraft total than would have been available from the sum of the two individual airlines. We have signed a series of letters about the joint venture that have tightened the protections for Delta pilots. Oddly, these are painted as concessions, mostly by pilots that haven't taken the time to read them or the old language they replaced.

The one big hullabaloo was about the 76 seat grievance settlement. What people can't or won't realize was that was a very losable arbitration case for us. Hopefully, everyone on the seniority list now knows the uncertainties of arbitration, but apparently they have very short memories because they come back and decry how any settlement is a "cave in". Delta's case would have been that they were in compliance when they signed the contracts to add these aircraft. You can't pick up flying at Walmart on a whim, it has to be planned well in advance. Since they were in compliance when they were ordered, they should be allowed to fly them.

You may not like that explanation, but that is probably what their case was. Go ask a lawyer friend if that would have some weight in an arbitration. So, as part of risk management, we settled the case. We won our interpretation of the language permanently, so we don't have to fight that battle again. Management already had the right to add the aircraft as 70 seat aircraft, so they won the right to put 6 more seats in 25 or so aircraft (I forget the number). We won the ability to have those seats removed if there was one furlough. Could we have possibly done better in arbitration? Yes. Could we have been slapped around and gotten nothing? Yes. Risk management.

The rest of the scope kerfluffle lately has been just silly. Republic flies E-190's for another carrier and it is a Delta scope concession. Republic buys Frontier and it is a Delta scope concession. Some guy knows a guy who knows a guy whose cousin says that Skywest wants to fly more 76 seat aircraft and that's a scope concession. It is difficult to even to have a discussion about this because all rational thought has been pushed aside on this issue. Every time someone sneezes, it is another Delta scope concession, even when the story is completely made up.

All I would ask is that you talk to your reps, go to union meetings, try to listen to what people are saying without so much emotion and you will find this. No one wants to relax scope. Everyone knows it is a big issue. Management has conceded that there is no fight left over 100 seat aircraft, they are resigned to that being a mainline aircraft.

As for the rest, I don't know what to say. People are afraid of change, and we have had a lot of that in the last 5 years. Emotions are high and there is no way to comabat that short of people growing up a little. The level of argument has really gotten to be a little childish.