How would you fix it? Obviously, if you are the #1 pilot, your AE "Wheel of Fortune" is pretty much a lock. If you are #9,000, how do you figure in the potential 8,999 pilots above you?

No worries at all.

That being said, it looks like ALPA is pushing their attorneys to challenge the Company on the application of FM to the furlough pay issue. I was pleasantly surprised to read that. Hopefully we get a better decision than Boch-head's 2003 ruling this time around because it is a truly petty grab by management.

Hopefully the junior guys remember this when management touts "the Delta family difference." In the end, the Delta family, as projected by management is, at best, dysfunctional. However, at the ground level, we usually do a pretty good job of taking care of each other.

Yes indeed, I’m glad they’re grieving it. As one of the 1941 losing a month’s pay, it is now seared into my brain.

At the end of the day, this is a job, nothing more, nothing less. It is a great job and I love this job, but it is a job (not a family). Big D is a large corporation and they’ve behaved exactly as I’d expect any large corporation to act in a crisis such as this (profit driven, profits over people). That doesn’t mean I have to like it. But at least now I know how to set my expectations for future encounters with management. No gives, protect the PWA.

so you know that "Delta Dinner" where they feed your spouse and you say a few words about how much you love being a Delta pilot? I asked my wife if that is what converted her to being a Delta spouse. She said nope. For her, it was being on an overnight with me and a couple of captains were playfully arguing over who was going to pick up our tab. She said that's when she felt like part of the Delta family. So, what does that say? It's not management, it's not the optics, it's the people. It's us. That's who is the true family here.

This is a great post. Most people can instinctually see through all the BS and figure out who is truly on their side. Delta people are great... especially the crews.

United has a much more transparent system, but I don’t think their CR guys add hundreds of extra positions to their awards and exercise a lot of discretion when awarding only a fraction, just to reduce training churn so it probably wouldn’t work for us.

Very true, great post.

Outstanding post.

Couple this with the VEOPers and that tells you volumes about this pilot group.

The consequences of the current system locks people in WAY too long, prevents easy base trades, leaves people hanging for up to a year, and encourages sloppy staffing on the company’s part.

Shorten the conversion windows and run mandatory bids more frequently.

I would add to that the requirement that they only post positions that they will actually award.

No more of this crap about posting 3,000 positions so that they can cherry pick which 600 (20%!!) they want to award.