Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
That was the "risk" in 2000 when our leadership took us down this road.
To achieve unity mergers are a necessary evil. Does anyone think Northwest should have been operated as a subsidiary? Why are the regional carriers any different?
We have to have some faith in ALPAs' merger policy. Windfalls are not supposed to happen. If you merge Delta with almost any regional by paycheck or equipment, the result is a staple.
ACL65 is a big supporter of "sunset" provisions, while I doubt we can do that. What I'd prefer is simply better scope language that controls staffing, not necessarily operational control. IE I don't care who OPERATES "Delta Flying" as long as a Delta seniority list pilot is at the controls. IMHO Delta seniority list pilots should be staffing Delta Private Jet Charters as well as Republic flying under the Delta brand.
The reason for my strategy is that it continues to allow the company the flexibility it wants to run its various businesses. I want Delta to make money. At the same time I do not want to allow them loopholes big enough to run 747 charter flights through.
If you are at Mesaba, I want you to have a Delta seniority number and longevity. Your career should not be re-set just because you work at a different division serving a common Corporation. As a union, we need to remove the incentive to constantly destroy and re create divisions within our brand which serve little purpose than to destroy longevity and our careers.
Bar;
You and I have discussed that as well. We do not care how Delta organizes their financial backing for their aircraft, we only care about the fact that a Delta Pilot is flying those jets. Ergo, DAL cannot afford X jet and wants another airline to "own" them, that is their business, but we will be flying them. We do not care who the "owner" is on that little piece of paper next to the door, we just want to the be the pilot group flying them.
That makes a ton of sense, and should be one of the avenues we explore. We also need to look at sun-setting these ASA's, so that we put in place a proviso that stops the continued renewal of these agreements. You have to have both of these concepts take hold to move beyond the position we are in now. Can the concepts and contractual provisions be a little different than a true sunset? Yep, they sure can, but you have to have written commitments from the company that will transcend leadership teams that commit the airline to stopping outsourcing and start in-sourcing their product. Most of this is debt driven, and not pilot driven. It is all about money and the appearance of financial health.
Like you and I have said, first you need the commitment to engage in this, and then you need the support. Either way, the current practices will need to change as the current generation of RJ's becomes obsolete in the next ten years. We sell the next generation of small gauge or we hold the ground. We decide to unify as pilots not as separate pilot groups against this model, or frankly nothing will change.
I understand the idea of not wanting our RJ brothers and sisters no have to reset longevity, that is important. Longevity and seniority are totally different.
On the Republic/F9 deal, simply put being the acquiring carrier carriers a lot of weight as it did in this SLI.