Lowering ALVs is certainly a concession in certain circumstances, wouldn’t you agree? If the ability to lower ALVs became permanent I would be nervous to be in an overstaffed category in shoulder months.

 

It seems to me when we were negotiating before this pilots wanted qol gains, no matter what, In a time when we had no real leverage.

Now when we have real leverage to possibly get something, bc the company needs to slow down the burn rate, pilots say no way. Wasted leverage, IMO.

I'm with gloopy, this should be a relatively short term cash flow problem..

temporary ALV reduction put into a deferred compensation bank to be paid out at the rate it went in, or greater, upon furlough, retirement, or two years.

in exchange for,

15 hr long call
drop the 2 hrs and 2 flights, if delta metal
SC above guarantee
Better RCC input
restructure JV limits

This will not prevent furloughs, but will increase qol when furloughees return. some may even increase the number of pilots needed on the other side of this, which brings back people earlier.

of course there is bankruptcy risk, but it should be less then the risk now.

and, yes, I most likely will be furloughed.

 

Now that's a novel way to look at things. Hmmmm, not sure I agree. Let's not have me be Mister Milk Toast here. I don't agree. 😎

 

As much as we like to thump our chests about QOL, I think it's clear to most people here now: money=QOL. And is priority number one for the vast majority of us.

 

If you presume the 64 year old is at least a 717 captain on year 12 pay at my hypothetical reduced ALV of 65 hours (from the initial post in this thread) then they are grossing $16640 per month with an additional company 401k contribution of $2662 per month. They had their pension stolen from them, but they still have had more time and should have a much larger 401k balance than a pilot who has been at Delta less than 4 years. The 64 year old is also 1 year away from claiming social security and still has a small monthly pension from the PBGC. Also, this pilot most likely does not have children under the age of 18 at home.


The pilots that are at most danger of being furloughed are an average age of 34. At a reduced ALV of 65 hours even the first year pilots are still grossing $6000 per month with an additional company 401k contribution of $960. I'd wager the majority are married with multiple small children. They have a much longer career ahead of them than the 64 year old, but if they are furloughed their employer based monthly income goes to $0 increasing the chances of depleting their savings and taking on additional debt to survive.


Personally, I would agree to reducing the ALV temporarily if it will save Delta pilots' families the financial hardship of furlough.

 

Two points.

One, if a person is furloughed, they have to take responsibility and change their lifestyle. Now, not beginning on October 1. Try like hell to avoid taking additional debt. I speak from personal experience.

Two, lowering the ALV will do absolutely nothing to reduce furloughs. It never has in the past. The company will do their best to figure out how many pilots they need to fly what marketing and network tell them, and furlough the rest, regardless of anything we might do. I hope that this thing calms and no one gets furloughed. It is traumatic as all get out and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but us playing checkers for a couple months while the company is planning next year's chess moves won't really matter.

 

reducing the ALV won't prevent furloughs. All it will do is put less money in the pockets of the pilots who are getting furloughed leading up to their furlough.

 

“No pilot shall be placed on furlough within 90 days of the company operating under the reduced ALV of this LOA or 90 days after 1 oct 2020 whichever is later. Any pilot placed on furlough status within 1 year of the company operating under a reduced ALV shall receive 6 months furlough pay. Force Majeure shall not apply to this provision”

 

it could if part of the lower ALV LOA said something like "no pilot may be awarded in PBS or white slip above 75 hours if any pilots are on furlough" if the LOA keeps hours down while pilots are on the street they would need more pilots for the same flying

 

Oh my God, not another "chess not checkers" analogy. That canard is as old as a stale pop culture joke that was briefly funny in 2003.

I do agree with the "take ownership of your lifestyle."

A lot of you guys seem to take the attitude of, "the ship is sinking and I'm not even going to help bail because it's going to sink anyway." And for all the talk of "QOL" you read the past few years (almost a holy grail) when talk of being able to spend even more time at home with the family is discussed, albeit for lower pay (reduced ALVs) then it shows that all we really care about is $$.

.... I realize that what I just wrote was a bit too harsh. The company sniffed and said "so what" when we DID step in with the April bids and saved them $50 million almost instantly.

That said I get the impression that we are all a bit cavalier. This virus is to me like a roaring inferno that's already decimated my acreage and is swiftly approaching the house (that would be Ch 7 liquidation). We need to save the house. Once the inferno is past then we can once again argue over the upgrades we were discussing earlier. If the house is reduced to ashes then there's not much future upgrades to worry about is there?