The vote revealed a split in our MEC right along former Company lines.

The vote itself was a mistake. As others have written, we could have deferred the vote, or made no recommendation to National. Instead we revealed our weakness and our divisions to the rest of the World to see.

The outcome of the vote was also a mistake that we will regret. We created a conflict where there was an opportunity to create unity. We decided not to represent Delta pilots who may flow down to Compass. We decided to create orphans in the next merger or corporate acquisition. We decided NOT to fly a new generation of aircraft which may very well be an interim solution to the 100 seat jet. We ujndermined our own negotiating power by outsourcing more of it.

The inclusion of the Continental Express pilots was working well until internal power struggles within the mainline Continental MEC pushed the split. We have Delta pilots who were Continental MEC members who were experienced in the issues and the solutions who stepped up and volunteered to help consider and restructure the Compass / Delta MEC ... those pilots were never even called. We had pilots who have worked in senior management at Fortune 100 Companies much larger than Delta who volunteered to provide economic analysis and look for the benefits of unity, sadly those pilots were also politely locked out of the process.

This Compass issue follows the long established pattern at ALPA. A pattern were pilots are divided and union members believe that it is appropriate to use our union to split the piloting profession into "haves" and "have nots" so that one pilot's work can help subsidize another pilot's pay. Once we accept ALPA-APARTHIED then all that's left is deciding where the line is drawn which divides us. Fighting over that "line in the sand" is where we spend far too much effort.

The next threat is scope by type rating. Management and the FAA see the E170 to E195 as one airplane type. Management is not likely to operate a E175 at Compass and a E190 at mainline. Already we see discussion here of letting the 100 seat flying go (and they say we'll get it back). When (if) that happens, remember the decision we made with Compass. We could have captured that flying.

It does not matter to Delta pilots who have their left seat on larger equipment. As long as they get theirs they don't care what happens to the Compass pilots, or even their First Officers out getting the walk arounds and garbage bags for them.

The direction our union is heading is absolute poison to the association. Divided we are weak. As we perform less and less of our flying we become irrelevant.

Very frankly, we need Reps in office who would have responded to a higher calling and not simply cast their vote with the Chairman. Pilots in every single Council except New York passed resolutions either asking for, or asking for the study of, UNITY. Those votes were ignored. Further, the Reps in C44 are in my opinion, the leaders of ALPA by virtue of the Atlanta base's size. They should have been looking further down the road than the negotiation of Compass's next contract.

I understand why they voted with Chairman Moak. He's done a great job, has a great reputation, he's smart and he's powerful. But there are times when you have to look at the Boss and say, "are you sure? I'm uncomfortable with that... and this is why..." and there are a set of brake pedals on the right side of the jet for a reason - use them if you have to.

There were answers to keeping Compass and restoring flying. The answers may have been ugly in the short term. But the alternative was to move the line and leave our own guys in hostile fire down on the beach. We left guys on the field - who cares they aren't jobs we want - right?