You want the union to operate this way. Do you want the company to operate the same way?

Do I want them to abide by the contract? Why yes, I do.

That wasn’t his point....but you knew that already.

What was his point? I disagreed that violating the contract is a trivial matter, especially for a company that values honesty and integrity as it’s first 2 values. He asked if I wanted them to operate that way.

I didn’t know what his point was. I want the Union AND Managements dealing with me and with each other to be honest and above board.

What was his point? His comment didn’t make sense in the context of the post he was quoting.

How was that a mic drop? They proved ALPAs claim.

Did ALPA ever say that they violated scope on the VS JV? Nope. They have only been pointing out, that the company has been adding UK flying post JV disproportionally to VS.

This is what I gathered from the podcast:
-We buy VS, gain access to LHR slots and UK point of sale. 👍
-The company uses their new boardroom position to leverage future US-UK growth to VS by shifting their otherworld flying to US JV routes.👎
-They attempt to divert you from these "facts" by pointing out that VS globally hasn't grown, just shifted flying around. DL pilots could care less about VS total flying globally, only UK->US is relevant.
-They again divert away these facts by saying we haven't reduced UK flying, and even grown flying to Europe. Again, this isn't about loss of pre-JV flying, but post JV missed opportunities. And new Europe growth is cool, but outside and irrelevant to this JV. It's not US-EU, it's US-UK.

With this new Blue Skies JV, my concern is that our snapshot of flying to US-UK will not be what it was pre-VS JV, but as of today. If true, this could lock in minimum flying at a lower ratio.

Yes, of course. And your point is? You don’t think Delta could do just as well with more Delta metal Point-Of-Sale flight availability in the UK?

Bingo. Nailed it.

It was a mic drop because Flight Ops responded in a clear, logical and articulate way to deliver the full story. All this talk about inequitable growth, but the fact remains Delta is still the largest airline across the Transatlantic.

You do realize there were no slots to LHR for Delta right? Delta wouldn't have been able to grow into US-UK anyway. Unless you think Virgin should have parked planes and we do the flying. Or just have Virgin keep flying to Asia and Africa at heavy losses.

Why all the focus on US-UK? Global Protection trumps Theatre Protection. At the end of the day we all have to do the Common Sense check. Did Delta Widebody flying grow? Yes. Did Profit Sharing grow? Yes.

I hope in the next contract we loosen up the theatre specific language and allow mechanism for thr company to shift flying where it is most profitable as long as our total widebody international flying is growing at a reasonable rate.

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Trip7, not a mic drop at all. I enjoy their candor, and it was a savvy business decision. To take readily available hulls at VS to capture growth on a newly inked JV was more cost effective than buying new jets and staffing them with DL employees. Win for investors and managers, but not for labor. Why should any DL pilot care about VS struggling on Africa or Asia routes? Should we be concerned about Aeromexico routes to Colombia or Brazil? Lets say Aeromexico struggled in Latin America, and shifted those jets and took nearly all of the future US/MEX growth over say 5-10 years, what would be different? Would it be good enough if our growth in the Caribbean off-set that for the LatAm region? Here's why it does in Mexico/LatAm as it does in UK/Europe. VS and AM don't really serve as a hub for the region, mostly (VS exclusively) for their home country. Our growth outside of Mexico in South America/Caribbean, and in Europe outside of the UK is independant of the JV. But within those nations our growth is 100% DEPENDANT on the JV being fair. If we let the other guys take all the growth, it's a loss of future flying, not some global flying zero sum game.