Please explain? Other than being wholly owned, you’re a DCI carrier just like the other 4 DCI carriers.

How long you been here? We’ve taken back a lot of smaller jet flying in the last couple of contracts with the 717 and 220.

IMO I don’t see our small jet scope changing much if any. We really need to improve our large jet scope.

Denny

Can you explain how DALPA took back the flying with the 717 and 220?

And by large jets I assume you mean JVs, and I agree. For the small jets; with the consolidation happening and operational improvements forthcoming, things like performance and profit sharing will only get better for the mainline. I find it hard to believe that most mainliners genuinely want to see the status quo changed. I question if all the "retake RJ scope" rhetoric I hear from these pilots is genuine after years without action, and years of reaping rewards that will only get better.

By making contractual changes we were able to reduce the total number of RJ’s from a high of 683 to something under 450. Hopefully we will be in the 375 range soon.

I think most of us would love to bring all the RJ flying in house, but it takes two to tango. The only way the company would agree to it would be if the rest of our contract were decimated. Same with JV flying. Unfortunately it's going to take incremental improvements to get where we want to be, and we definitely have to be sure to not take any steps backwards. In today's environment there's no reason to give on scope, and that's why united and their pilots are currently at an impasse...

What he said. (Thanks Sailingfun! You saved me from looking it up!)

Denny

ALPA has to walk a very fine line, the JV issue would be tough to deal with at the NMB, literally all cards are stacked against them. I see Delta tightening RJ scope in lieu of JVs.

To be fair, I don't think many folks object to 9E guys/gals going to work as S3A. It's the garden-variety Non-Rev 9E S3A suddenly bumping the retired/parent 3SB that is objectionable (to most?). Particularly with non-rev-ability being a watered down version of what it once was (when said retiree was active).

Exactly. The point is not the guys going to/from work is their dependents travelers.

At one time ASA was owned by Delta, but we weren’t under the illusion we were Delta employees (well, maybe some disillusioned folks were).

However, we did have S2s and S3s, and even got 3 S1s one year for performance. So we weren’t complaining about the title thing.

I think you are referring to 9E freshmen. Most of us are aware we aren’t Deltas. I’ll take the positive space 2nd flight over that S1.

That contract was a scope concession from the pilot group. That pilots try to sell it themselves as a win is sickening. You are celebrating reducing the number of airframes of a type that Delta was already parking (the 50 seaters) in exchange for allowing MORE of the planes they wanted (76 seaters) as a win?

You not only didn't "improve" RJ scope, you sold more of it.

Disagree. How is going form 683 to 450 a concession. If you don't like those numbers then give me the total seats at 683 compared to 450.

Denny

You're somehow missing their point. Its a simple point. Delta agreed to scope in the 50seat RJs to a very small number (which was going to happen as it was announced before even TA1 those planes would go away) while increasing the allowed number of 70 and 76 seat aircraft, which is what Delta wants to replace the regional fleet with. So you dropped a large number of 50 seaters from the scope, but that was a plan (without a concrete number) already. You may be cheering economic eventuality is all theyre saying.

Personally i think letting more large RJs into the tent may eliminate mainline jobs, and while it may just be a bigger pie for everyone, i want every bit of that narrow body flying in house

No I'm not missing the point. I'm looking at the overall big picture.

You say it was a plan already. Care to prove it? Yes I know that the amount of 76 seaters was increased but overall it was a Scope gain. Less overall RJ's AND less overall seats by not an insignificant amount.

Denny

Wrong. We celebrated a huge reduction in the percentage of domestic passengers that were flown by non Delta Pilots. This percentage was huge and peaked around 2010-2012. The percentage of passengers flying on RJs has been steadily decreasing over the last decade.

Saying this was a bad move because 50 seaters were being parked anyway is faulty logic. Did this accelerate parking 50 seaters or not? Did overall numbers trend in the right direction or not? Finally who knows what alternative fleet plan the company could have went with had things been different.

In the last decade the total number of RJs, total RJ seats, and the percentage of passengers flying on mainline have all been trending in the right direction.

DALPA legitimately screwed up many things regarding Scope, TA-2 was not one of them.

Scoop

It was already part of the plan in 2012. This was part of the Pinnacle BK. 140+ CRJ-200 was a 10 year deal with NWA that carried over. With the Pinnacle BK, it was a way for Delta to eliminate a big chunk of those 50 seater. During that time Pinnacle/Mesaba had 50 ish 76 seater. Now that Pinnacle/Mesaba became Endeavor they have 100+ 76 seater. The point was the majority of the 50 seater at Endeavor was already going away. The parking of those planes started before you guys got your last TA. It was down to 25 CRJ-200 at one point in 2014-2015 not long before I left Endeavor.

I think the point the other guy was trying to make is, the 50 seater was already going away (which was part of the Pinnacle BK) that there was no need to allow more 76 seater.

If the 50 seater was going away....why doEs Delta still have them? There were a lot more 50 seaters than just the ones at Pinnacle. Stating that the 50 seaters were going away regardless is faulty logic. Delta was/is really good at shuffling RJ’s between DCI carriers. Look what’s happening now with the consolidation to 3 DCI carriers. Delta was under contract with more than one DCI carrier with years to go with the 50 seaters. Allowing a minimal amount of 76 seaters was an enticement to the DCI carriers so Delta could modify the contracted lift and get rid of a lot of 50 seaters sooner rather than years into the future.

The bottom line is it was a scope win with less total RJ’s and way less total seats. If y’all can’t see this you are being myopic and need to look at the big picture.

Denny

It was a huge win for the pilots and resulted in Delta hiring more pilots than the other major airlines combined over the life of the contract. Without the changes in the 76 seat limits Delta would not have been able to get the existing lift contracts terminated and renegotiated. Results matter, they were far better than the forum projected.

The changes to the 76 seat limit actually saved 9E, and Endeavor would not exist today without them. The plan was to use 9E's 76 seat jets to exchange for 50 seaters at other carriers, if you had not moved the limit.

The 50 seaters are required by the government in some markets; Same as with some 76 seaters for DCA operations. If you recapture all scope, mainline pilots must fly RJ's, or else surrender major market share.

The BK never meant those 50 seaters wouldn’t fly again. They just wouldn’t have flown for Endeavor. How many of those retired planes came back out of the desert? I think 9E was back up to about 50 when I left. Delta owns those planes and could continue to fly them, the NWA deal only specified who would fly them.

As far as 76 seaters, they had about 56 until 16 went to ASA. Then the BK deal took them from 40 to 81. The current number they have is due to frames coming over (and back) from ASA/ExpressJet. They’ll soon add more from the current DCI consolidation. To pin all of 9E’s shrinkage/growth on that scope change ignores the changes throughout the DCI fleet.

The scope change may or may not have changed how many 50 seaters are flying, that would be impossible to know for sure. It would also be impossible to know if they would find a way to add those 50 seat aircraft back in a different airframe or at a different company, but the contract insured they can’t now. (Assuming management honors it)

Ignorance and misconceptions regarding small jet scope at Delta is obviously flourishing.

1300 Mainline Pilots including yours truly were furloughed partly in response to poor strategy regarding scope in the 2002 to 2006 timeframe. Some of this was due to the disruption that a new jet on the scene caused - in the 1990s DAL and many other airlines basically had no or a very limited scope section because it was not needed. DALPA was learning on the job and there were many missteps.

DAL parked the 737 200s and only had 10 737 700s mainly for special airports. The smallest mainline aircraft was the Mad Dog at about 140 seats or whatever the configuration was back then. This is when the scope battle was being fought. DAL was authorized 70 seat RJs in limited number so the 70-140 seat market was where the battle was to be fought.

DALPA caved on 76 seaters but if I remember correctly it was when we were also giving up 42% pay, our retirements, 2 weeks of vacation, work rules galore etc. The point being, this was not a period of gains by mainline Pilots but a time when we were just trying to minimize losses and concessions. It is unrealistic to think while we were giving up everything else we would make gains in scope. We got taken to cleaners throughout our PWA via BK, the RLA, the 1113 process and the courts.

That was then what about now? We ordered the 717 around 2012 and now have C series aircraft. Small jet scope has not increased from our 76 seat give when we were giving everything.

DAL has hired over 4000 Pilots in this time and there is practically zero threat of anything over 76 seats at DCI. This was not always the case. Many thought that DCI would be flying 90 seat RJs but with the C series and the current environment this threat is practically non existent.

DALPA has lost a few small jet battles but won the war. Mainline aircraft went from 140 seat minimum size down to 110 seats with thousands of Pilots hired. RJ flying has decreased no matter what metric you use.

We have already discussed the faulty logic of arguing 50 seaters were going around anyway. They were, but at a very slow rate with plenty of multi-year contracts limiting the reduction.

Anyone concerned about small jet scope is fighting the last war. The new threat is JVs, code shares, open skies etc.

Scoop

Exactly, you can’t just look at one DCI carrier and draw any conclusions. For example, the number of 76-seaters (and 50-seaters) at ASA/XJT is now zero.

Not arguing your post, I agree with most everything. Weren’t the DC-9s around 100 seats, though?

Scope is not a contract item, it is defined at the NMB, permitted flying is the contract item. These are very different things, yet I always see pilots getting them confused. When you say no scope, the correct term is undefined permitted flying. The reason thousands got furloughed at Delta is due to the Comair debacle, and the "force manure". DALPA didn't make any mistakes, they chose seniority over scope, they then gambled they could force the RJ's back on mainline. It probably would have worked, but 9/11 and then the following years...well, you know the story.

Yes, I was covering this issue from my perspective at Delta south.

Scoop

Thanks but I am not confused, or no more than usual :D, just trying to quickly make a point in the vernacular.

Scoop

Yeah, scope issues are determined at the NMB, you can't even strike over scope. The real issue however, is that ALPA, and the other airline unions, have lost at the NMB almost every time over scope. So, even fighting for it can actually set you back in retaining it.

For starters, the CEO position at Endeavor is also concurrently the SVP Delta Connection and Delta Global Services. So our CEO oversees all other Delta Connection carriers. He is a Senior VP at Delta AND CEO of Endeavor. Our last 3 CEO's did the same thing. RG, and BL. **

Delta has full editorial control of our manuals, policies, and procedures. Hence why all of our manuals mirror Delta in philosophy and design.

Delta handles 100% of our IT. It's all done though ATL. If we forget a password, we call Delta IT even for our own intranet.

Delta pilots and employee put on an internal interview prep seminar quarterly or so, just to help prepare us for the Delta interview. It's put on by Delta pilots and I think an HR person if I remember. Could be wrong.

Delta pilots get a referral bonus for referring someone to 9E

I believe our benefits coordinator is a Delta employee from what I was told. Again could be wrong.

Obviously the higher pass travel and JS priority than any other DCI carrier.

Any and all net profit earned by 9E directly contribute to Delta profitability (and profit sharing). You can call us fee for departure, but in reality you're just paying yourselves. We don't have shareholders.

We have access to the Delta gym in MSP, DTW, and ATL. (Haha I know, but it made the list)

And most importantly... We get the Delta discount on food at the hot bar in LGA!!



Now, are we treated any differently by Delta pilots than any other DCI carrier? No not really. "I thought you guys flew for AA"..."you're thinking of Envoy" (weekly this conversation happens)


**
"David Garrison is Senior Vice President – Delta Connection and Delta Global Services, CEO Endeavor Air for Delta Air Lines. In this role he oversees all aspects of the more than 2,300 daily departures for Delta’s six regional partner airlines. Additionally, he has responsibility for Delta’s wholly owned subsidiary, Delta Global Services, which encompasses more than 20,000 employees and is a leading supplier of aviation services across the United States, Bahamas and Guam. As CEO of Endeavor Air, David leads Delta’s wholly owned regional carrier which operates more than 700 daily departures under the Delta Connection brand."



Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

That's kinda my whole point. They will never all go away.......unless they come back to mainline and I just don't see that happening anytime soon. At this point I think top end Scope is the most important for everyone.

Denny

Pilots should have special non-rev benefits above all other employee groups.

Ugh, finally. I waited forever.

This is really the important piece. Delta is very much involved with dictating policies and procedures at 9E. We are required to follow DL checklists and various other procedures not just on the pilot side but shared services operations as well and especially in 9E's OCC.

We have corporate employees who also hold positions at Delta and/or Delta Connection- not even just executive level roles either. And the best example I ever saw was touring the tower at JFK and seeing how closely Delta and Endeavor ops people are working together, right next to each other, you couldn't tell who was DL or 9E just by walking through. Man, things have changed since but at one point Delta pilots actually used to sit in on Endeavor pilot interviews and to this day Delta has a lot of stake and input in 9E's pilot hiring. The point is Delta dictates a lot that goes on at 9E. This is very very different than the other contract carriers.

My family are all Delta retirees and they have no issues with S3A because at the end of the day it rarely ever effects them.

This whole discussion is ridiculous. Guys going to work, and to work only, should have priority over retirees. Other than Pilots going to work, Delta retirees and their family should have priority over connection carrier Pilots and their families. It’s not that hard

Scoop

This is Delta IT that we're talking about...

Ha, I was just going to post this. They probably will institute a priority system when Delta IT can properly program it. So, the year 2145 at the earliest.

That's not the important part, our union violates DALPA's scope and bargains directly with DAL management. That technically makes us an alter ego.

They would have gotten rid of the airplanes one way or another. You are all very heavily vested in this game of claiming that what Delta asked for was a win. Tell me, how many 50 seaters do we have active compared to our scope limit? If you are correct, then we will be at the limit for 50 seat flying.

Interesting fact: the term alter ego doesn't exist in the Delta contract. Also, the RJ cutout pretty much makes it legal for Delta to own a regional as long as the certificates are kept separate.

He might have been talking about our bridge agreement. We have a contractual agreement between Endeavor ALPA and Delta management regarding our fleet commitment. It's in writing and specifies a minimum number of aircraft Delta will place in service with Endeavor.

Our MEC also spent the better part of last year trying to negotiate career progression directly with Delta.



Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Sounded to me like since your CEO is also DAL management and your contract is negotiated with him, he believes your union is in violation of DALPA contract.