Originally Posted by
NuGuy
Heyas Sparks,
And had you noticed the point I was making, you would see that you are correct...they ARE two different situations, but ended up with the same result...stagnation.
You say that AMR has to meet this challenge to be "productive", which, I assume in Alfaspeak, means concessions and the resultant loss of pay, scope and other work rules. Otherwise they will continue to languish in stagnation.
But look at our own situation. Our MEC Administration has either been praised or accused (depending on which side you are on) of philantropy towards management, and we are in exactly the same situation, except that the AMR pilots are in relative control of their flying, and the DAL pilots are not, to wit, the cold water shrinkage of the LAX base to Alaska, and loss of our narrowbody flying EVERYWHERE.
So what's in it for the AMR pilots? Loss of significant Pay, QoL and control over their flying, when they will most likely wind up in exactly the same situation?
How many new fleets/aircraft have we taken delivery of? Where are the synergies allowing the deployment of a new 100 seater? Additional widebodies? How many aircraft have we parked? How many parked airplanes have been replaced? How many pilot seats have been lost to DCI, Alaska and other code share ventures?
The thrust of your post was that the AMR pilots were getting angry because of lack of upgrades and 2000 furloughs. How many pilots have we upgraded since the merger versus those who have lost their seats?
Had all of our pilots, both NWA and DAL, who were out on voluntary furlough or Mil leave, decided to come back, how many would WE still have on furlough?
And how many pilots do we have versus the closing of the merger? More? Less? Or are we stagnant...just like AMR is? Has our "productive engagement" with management really improved the Pay or QoL of our pilots?
Nu
Well gee, how many ways can you be wrong in one post? First, with the 300 we are in the midst of hiring right now, the total will be 1200 pilots hired since 2007, so the answer to your question is that with all the bypass furloughed and mil leave back, we still would have hired.
You missed it, but in 2007 Delta was growing, hiring pilots and many people were upgrading. I know the story was different at NWA but that was not our story. We were making money and PART of that was that we now had high productivity. So whine away about constructive engagement, but we went through bankruptcy, we dealt with our productivity problem and now we don't have to anymore. Close your eyes and try to wish the problem away, but it is a problem at AMR.
I hope I don't give away any closely guarded secrets, but we had a giant recession last year, which caused a lot of people to stop flying, Also, we had about 300 pilots flying freighters that were losing money at a prodigious rate. So yes we parked aircraft and lost flying from the freighters. How many pilots got furloughed? Yeah, none. So don't tell me that dealing with management produces no results. (oh wait, I know, it was the Compass flows that saved it all, yeah right)
So once again, you can crybaby all you want about how your life sucks as a first officer, but that doesn't make the problem go away at another airline that has nothing to do with us. This is a commodity industry now, and if you can't compete on productivity then you will get your butt kicked. How do I know? Because Delta will make a profit this year, we will get a fairly substantial profit sharing check, we will get a 4% raise and a 1% DC bump. AMR will lose a lot of money this year and APA will get bupkus and their pilot group will continue to shrink. Think that's a problem. No? Then just whine away, it's what you do best.