Agree completely, far to many pilots discount all the other employees that make the airline work.

I really don't care very much about what DAL pays other employees except for how it may affect us.

Giving the other employees a small raise will negatively affect us very marginally concerning PS - probably a rounding error, someone else can do the math.

On the positive side we want all DAL employees to lead the industry. This helps pave the way for us to lead the industry. Its a lot easier to make a case that we should be industry leading if every other employee group is leading the pack.

Finally we also benefit in that it makes DAL more competitive for these employee groups and that probably helps attract more qualified applicants.

All in all this is probably pretty good for DAL Pilots.

Scoop :)

True dat.........

Schools in my area have come around on this finally over the last few years. Seemed like since the days of "No child left behind" and subsequently "Race to the top" every school had to be focused on every kid being "college ready", even to the point it would chase kids out of school. There are/were probably schools that were just "mailing it in" but getting more vocational education into the high schools has been a welcomed development in our district.

The high school I went to still teaches wood/metal shop, FAA and has programs to spend your sophomore-senior year learning trade (off site). The school system in the city I currently live in has a program for high school kids to graduate with an A&P. They have lots of other programs such as automotive repair, carpentry, business, entrepreneurship, etc... The programs are there, it's just whether kids are willing to capitalize on such opportunities. I'm sure some of it is being unsure of what they want to do in life, but I'm betting a lot of it is the stigma of "who" goes to such programs.

I'm probably in the same boat as you. From a very early age, I was taught that college was the only option. Not AN option, but the only option. Every school I went to, public and private, taught us that college was the path to success and anything less was failure. My high school was particularly bad; even the military was not a viable option after high school; they got in trouble for banning recruiters.

It's no wonder that tuition is out of control and professors are making well into the 200K territory; it's simple supply and demand. 40-50 years ago, college was still a reach for a lot of families. Loans were difficult to get. Today, with student loans backed by Uncle Sam, anyone can qualify and debt becomes so common. Universities know this and take full advantage. It's disgusting. All under the guise of having a piece of paper that says you're more educated than others who don't have that piece of paper.

My wife has a friend in her early 40's who is going for her doctorate in "something." She's a career student. 5 degrees. Has never made more than 30,000 a year. What a joke our education system is.

Hold on. Why are we blaming colleges for merely offering a service. Colleges haven't been cutting state budgets which help offset the cost of tuition. Colleges aren't sitting in boardrooms demanding their most competitive hires have bachelor or masters degree. Colleges aren't sitting at kitchen tables telling kids they need to attend. There are certainly problems at University in this country (like making millions off the backs of "student-athletes" for virtually nothing), but most problems are the result of bad policy and capitalism.

I get the gravity of the debt, which cannot and never will be repayed. But the interest will remain and its already massive and will become the single biggest thing we pay for in perpetuity.

Be that as it may, "welfare" as you put it, is nothing now compared to what over half the country is pushing for. Unlimited open borders with unlimited free healthcare, "education", housing and eveything else for unlimited amounts of poor people who want to walk over and take it. Then whoever walks over to take it will be amnetized and given a "pathway to citizenship" (voting) that will lock in that system for 1000 years via single party rule. That's literally the campaign promise of an entire major political party with a good chance of winning right now.

6 figure airline pilots (most near or above the quarter million mark in total compensation) will be considered a mandatory target market for funding that fantasy.

Want to see racism? Go to East Dearborn.

I've been. Walked into an Afghan restaurant and was treated like a king by both the husband and wife that ran it.