Captain Lee Moak
President
Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l
1625 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

Captain Tim O’Malley
Chairman
Delta Master Executive Council
100 Hartsfield Centre Parkway, Suite 800
Atlanta, GA 30354

Lee and Tim,
I wanted to take a moment to let you know that I recently responded to an outreach from
Delta First Officer Tim Caplinger who contacted me in his capacity as the leader of the Delta
Pilots Association.
I made it perfectly clear to Mr. Xxxxxxxxx that in my opinion, a breakaway of the Delta
pilots from ALPA would likely prove highly disadvantageous for the Delta pilots and destructive
to our profession as a whole. When APA broke away from ALPA in 1963 the labor environment
for airline pilots in the United States was far different than it is today. JFK was the President at
the time and had recently come out strongly in favor of organized pilots in the Southern Airways
dispute of 1962. American’s pilots prospered during the benign days of regulation, but that
prosperity ended abruptly with the onset of deregulation.
I have always thought it is better to work within the existing political framework to
achieve reform than by wreaking havoc upon one’s organization. After I was hired at American,
I led the battle against the two-tier pay system – not by trying to tear things apart, but by working
within the system. Ultimately, with patience and perseverance, we prevailed.
I also expressed my significant concerns about the law firm Mr. Caplinger’s group has
enlisted as their counsel. The Allied Pilots Association had a previous relationship with the
Seham law firm and eventually dismissed them. Shortly after the Sehams were dismissed at
APA, they began coordinating with a pro-management dissident group at American called the
AICA which has been trying to destabilize and decertify APA ever since. They are also involved
on American’s property in a decertification effort with the TWU and were heavily involved with
the disaster which occurred with the mechanics at Northwest.
I further recommended that Mr. Caplinger carefully evaluate his group’s present course
of action. I know that institutional inertia is a difficult thing to overcome, however I think that a
Delta breakaway from ALPA would further fracture and destabilize our profession and play right
into the hands of management teams across the industry. Lee and Tim, as you are well aware, I
am working in exactly the opposite direction – trying to move pilot unions closer together as
evidenced by the fact that APA has recently signed a services agreement with ALPA to help
APA negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.
Finally, I asked Mr. Caplinger to cease misrepresenting my position as part of his
recruitment efforts. I stand strongly behind the leadership at ALPA and have been working
diligently to forge closer cooperation and coordination between APA and ALPA. To be clear, I
will wield my veto power at CAPA to defeat any attempts by the DPA to make any sort of
overtures to CAPA.

Sincerely,
Captain Dave Bates