Originally Posted by
Herkflyr
However, how do you expect DAL pilots to feel when:
a. The Comair MEC unilaterally petitions ALPA national to get on our seniority list (and at least some assumed that their Comair DOH would transfer over, giving an RJ captain an instant 767 left seat).
b. The Comair MEC leadership explicitly rejected the idea of furloughed DAL pilots flying for Comair at the bottom of the seniority list unless they resigned their DAL seniority.
c. Comair pilots were leading proponents of RJDC nonsense.
d. Now "Joe Merchant" STILL thinks that a Comair pilot should get hired at DAL with his Comair DOH used for "bidding purposes"?....
And ya'll wonder?
I normally read posts on here for entertainment... and to try to keep myself up to date with what is going on in the industry. I am actually on here because someone told me that Pinnacle is merging Mesaba with colgan and taking all their jets.... leaving Pinnicle flying jets and the newly merged (and mostly furloughed) Mesaba/Colgan flying turbo props. I still dont know if this is true or false.. and the ALPA magazine that keeps showing up in my mailbox despite quiting long ago wont give me any good information. All B.S. propaganda.
This post is sucked me in like a black hole. Comair pilots getting preferential hiring everywhere with seniority? Just go play the PowerBall. The odds are better.
Where this thread has navigated to is much more serious.
I hope that every Delta Pilot who bothers to read anything on APC, which is probably like 15 or 16 guys, understands that WE DID EVERYTHING to get our MEC voted out.
ALPA is heavily fortified at ALL levels. JC Lawson made it his mission in life to infuriate the DAL MEC and therefore the DAL pilots. The only way to get rid of an MEC is to get new LEC reps in and vote out the current MEC chair. We tried like hell, but only got two of our guys in there. That created a 2 to 2 tie when voting for the MEC. The dead lock meant nothing could happen. One of our two LEC reps was recieving horrible phone calls at home and quit at his wifes request. Then the vote was 2 to 1, and Lawson remained MEC chair for ANOTHER term. It was like a cancer that kept coming back.... and you knew that it was only a matter of time before it killed you. This failure to "recall the mec" took place over nearly the entire 2004 calander year.
Now the cancer is gone. But it caused so much damage.... the body of Comair is on life support. It is sad, but every negative aspect of what has transpired could have been avoided long ago.
Am I talking about Comair petitioning ALPA to get on the DAL seniority list? OF course not. Again, play the powerball. OR spend a fortune on a lawsuit against ALPA that ultimately settles out of court for less than half of what you paid into it. Again, the RJDC was a stupid failure but only came into existence because of what transpired before that.
What I am talking about is the fragmenting of DAL by way of scope concessions. Ideally, it would be nice if DAL was one airline with some international codeshares. Perhaps a Scope clause citing equipment (jets at mainline, props at codeshare partners), but there is no reason why RJs should not be flown at Mainline by DAL pilots. More Job opportunities at the big leagues would be nicer than more job opportunities at the farm team.
What happened years ago was the recipe for the desaster that exists today. When Comair first started as a company, it was all props. No big deal for DAL, and Comair simply put an ad in the Cincy Enquirer for pilots. People showed up from the farms of KY and IN with crop dusting experience and no college degrees and persued an airline career.
When Comair got RJ's, now the crop duster boys said... "We're all in the same union. You're no better than me. We should all be in the same shop (ie "list")"
Does anyone see any evidences here of the MidWest Unionized Mentality? If you work at GM in Ohio, your no better than another guy who works for GM despite differences in education.. equipment operated, etc. This was also a MidWesterners attitude and viewpoint concerning the purchase of Comair by Delta. Remember.... Labor unions are apex of life in the midwest.
I hope that 80, 90, and 100 seat RJs are never approved by any Major airline for operation at a regional affiliate. I hope that The UAL CAL merger makes a point of sticking to the 50 seat scope clause. And I hope that Pilots at DAL, especially those who were CVG based and furloughed, understand that everyone hired around the time of the strike and beyond worked doggedly to change the engrained union leadership at Comair.
The most senior pilots at Comair (literaly 20 years and beyond) are facing tough times. Perhaps no longer CVG based and commuting, perhaps facing the difficult proposition that your six figure job is in jeapardy, perhaps dealing with the worst schedules or even reserve after all this time. Yes it sucks, but blaming delta or demanding that ALPA give you Date of Hire at every airline in the country is not likely to happen.