Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

They did it because ALPA stated the Comair MEC could not get its' own scope that bound Delta to the allocation of RJ flying. The Comair MEC correctly foresaw the whipsaw that would result in the majority of the flying Comair had traditionally performed being outsourced to non union and non ALPA members.

Lawson tried to get the Delta pilots to negotiate with him. He would gladly help change Comair Management's policy if the Delta MEC would help change ALPA's policy towards scope that shut out the Comair pilots.

In my opinion it was wrong to use furloughed pilots as bargaining chips but consider:

• The Delta MEC could have simply negotiated with Delta management who owned and controlled Comair.
• The Delta MEC could have helped Comair secure its flying and keep more flying inside ALPA (rather than Teamsters and SkyWest)
• The Comair pilots' nightmare scenario came true.

Given that the Delta MEC could have negotiated directly with Delta management on a flow down at Comair, I think it is cheap political grandstanding for the MEC to point at a relatively powerless Comair MEC, using them as a straw man while behind the scenes the DELTA MEC WAS OUTSOURCING every bit of flying it could sell to management.

Frankly, I'm surprised the Delta pilots were dumb enough to fall for it.