No FA furloughs
 

Per Email from head of IFS this afternoon. That’s good news at least!

Guess the company really does just want to shaft the pilots. Should have expected this after their super sincere contract negations earlier this year. 🙄

Apples to oranges. The FAs did it by taking 3882 unpaid leaves, 284 split lines (2 on one line), and 1054 fly on/off bids (one month on, one off). Additionally, “hundreds” transferred to catering or hospitality support positions.

Were those offers ever extended to us? I am not above that type work and I wouldn't mind learning the operation like in those "walk a mile segments."

Good for them! Now they just need to unionize :rolleyes:

Don't forget the 60/60 deal. 60 percent of your pay to stay home if over 60 years old.

If they have underlying health conditions, many of which would disqualify one from a first class medical anyway

We get mad when FAs compare themselves to us. But now we want to be compared to FAs?

Apples to oranges.

It’s apples to apples, as we are all Delta employees. The company bent over backwards to keep them on property, yet they apparently aren’t all that interested in keeping the pilots. I understand the financials involved, and perhaps pilot furloughs truly couldn’t Have been helped, but the lack of effort is disheartening.

Again, very happy for the FAs. I know a lot of them have really been sweating this.

No, and likely never will be, because our tough Association would never allow it. The company likely proposed items like this, but if DALPA agreed then it would be viewed as a ‘concession’, and they would be pilloried by all their tough-guy supporters.

And so we get nowhere, and 1941 of us (or more) won’t work here for a while. And we’ll pat ourselves (and this MEC) on the back and claim victory. And 1941 of us (or more) look for jobs.

Great work, Delta MEC. You showed ‘em.

I don't follow your logic here. How is it DALPAs issue the airline is furloughing? DALPA has offered, from I have read, very amenable terms and options with flexibility to forestall some furloughs. Kompany told them to pound sand. Give us ALV concessions or nothing.

Well say hypothetically we give them ALV relief; 1)what's stopping the kompany from furloughing anyway? and 2)how long would it take to remove that provision if accepted (which I don't think it would ever pass a vote). We've seen the numbers, we know the $$$ savings given the multiple voluntary options proffered by the MEC. I can see them, if given ALV relief, using it as a rolling tool to overwork certain categories while idling others, a feast or famine type scenario where they can pull the strings at will (optimizer 4.0). We've seen their act. Dishonesty is in their playbook.

No, I don't think we need to go crazy Ivan on giving up anything to them. I was prepared as UNA to be furloughed. I got saved by VEOP, but I'm still not all that far from the bottom of the list. Kompany is out to make an example of union shop, they are covering that under the guise of $$ savings. It's all a massive pile of BS.

Because ALV cuts were a win win. Kept thousands in The left seat at 62 hours a month with. 62 hour green slip trigger, resulting in 20k less per year at base rate verse 100k less per year. Alv cut couod have gave us many soft money improvements in the contract and if they wanted it upped due to return to normal pax loads we could say no and now fly 2 trips a month average at greenslip making way more with a few extra days off. Wpyod have saved them trianing costs and kept us working. But alas alpa is the same no matter what carrier. Protect the top 10% and screw the rest. Smae 10% who mostly had the summer off

You are assuming quite a bit there. Unless you know more than the rest of us know. It would be the first time I have heard of a 20% cut before the MOAD, a 20% cut with a lower GS limit, a 20% cut with more days off on reserve... This is the first I have heard anything about this, so I'm just going to guess you made it up to fit the narative.

Really strange post. Bizarre actually if your trying to make some point. Let’s look at the facts. 25,000 flight attendants, 14,000 pilots. 1900 pilot early retirements verses 4000 flight attendant early retirements. A handful of pilots taking unpaid leaves verses 3900 flight attendants taking unpaid leaves. In addition several hundred flight attendants on 8 month transfer to catering. Additional flight attendants moving to res for 1 or 2 years. Flight attendant monthly line average reduced to 71 hours verses ours at 79. Do you really want to compare us to the flight attendants?
They have reduced inflight staffing by a third in addition to the 71 hour line value.
That should be sobering to pilots about the future planned block hours.

Your numbers are based off the worst of the pandemic travel numbers. What will their staffing and hours look like next summer?

What part did you find strange or bizarre?

I’m not following your intended insult at all.

sailingfun used one contraction correctly! There is hope left in this world! Rejoice! Rejoice!

(Yes, I know I am a Richard.)
edit: Shouldn’t post after cocktails.

It’s FUD. Nothing more.

Keep that in mind the next time you pass by your Endeavor pilot comrades ( oh and the Comair and ASA ones before )

What exactly are you proposing be kept in mind?

They have asked us to make the same basic changes they applied to the flight attendants. In our case to a lesser degree than the flight attendants. How do you feel that it means they aren’t interested in keeping the pilots?
I also forgot to add a additional 1200 flight attendants will be on shared lines and fly on/off programs.

I guess the point of his post went over your head.

You do realize that previously Delta was in the process of furloughing over 1300 Pilots while COMAIR and ASA were hiring hundreds of Pilots - many gleeful over the resultant quick upgrades.

Delta and our affiliates are not always affected similarly.

Scoop

They staggered the leaves so that some will return before the summer to cover the increase in flying. They will also return the TDY flight attendants from catering. With those returns I don’t see the 71 hour line value increasing much toward the summer norm of 90 unless they offer more leaves. They have also stated they will handle month to month staffing changes with PLOC’s.

I’m not interested in comparing ourselves with the FAs, for a great many reasons.

Maybe starting with the fact that it feeds the company effort in undermining the union.

Exactly.

On the NW side, while almost 1000 were on furlough, pinnacle darn near doubled in size allowing for nice quick upgrades. And compass came to existence, with even more quick upgrades at the start.

come on man, whats the furlough percentage at Delta and at Endeavor?

Stop digging a hole, lots of us *were* at a regional and respect regional pilots. Sheesh.

Strong scope language is very important.

A tired meme. I’ve never seen any disrespect for RJ guys at Delta or NWA. We’ve all come from somewhere. Some had it harder than others. Are we going to compare glove sizes next? Please... could we. Or who’s Dad can beat up another’s dad?

Thats why any idea of management bring back 35 of the 76 seaters parked because of Compass Flow Down is gone, is a no from me.

I hope we can get that flying in house in a couple of years when we are out the Covid arena.

Agreed. ‘We’ hate it when we make gains in our contract and then the FA’s say “Me too, me too!”, but then want whatever perceived deal they got? This movie isn’t over, time will tell how things shake out. Good on them. I’m worried about us.

The only reason there's no furloughs for FA's is because close to 5,000 took a retirement package and about another 5,000 total are either taking unpaid leaves, working in other departments, or flying shared lines. Also, while I don't know the numbers they've implemented a program for FAs above 60 to take a paid medical leave while Covid plays out.

Right there you have about 40% of the pre-Covid seniority list.

Also, FAs don't have a monthly guarantee and many bid for 50-60 hours per month.

Not making a joke of the age thing but that can be quite a large number of FA's. On an international flight it's not unusual for a good majority of the FA's to be close to if not over 60. Heck a lot of times 2 out of 3 of the pilots are also.

Delta’s rules to qualify for the medical leave are pretty stringent. A pilot who met the criteria would almost certainly be medically grounded.

I’m curious, is there anywhere one can see exactly what these rules are?

Denny

I posted them a while back. Will see if I can dig them up.
Here you go. Items were straight off Delta net.

I am sure we have some. There are however obvious issues with pilots holding a medical. The required retirement age of 65 also comes into play. The program has two parts for non cons. Part one is for those over 70. Part two is for those age 60 to 70. Only part two would apply to pilots. In order to qualify you need to have at least one of the following, a BMI over 40, renal disease, liver disease, lung disease, immune compromised system, autoimmune conditions or neurological problems. I would say that with very few exceptions pilots who might qualify For the non con program can go out on a medical and get a much better benefit via our excellent disability program.

If you’re 5’10” & weigh more than 280 lbs., you would qualify. I think you’d find more than a few of those walking around the lounge. Also, not many autoimmune disorders are disqualifying. HIV is one example of an autoimmune disorder that allows you to hold a Class 1 medical.

How does being obese get you the privilege of indefinite paid time off. Being overweight is something people can control.

Thanks for digging that up.

Denny

The older FAs I know are as seasoned and skeptical of mgt as we are. The sentiment I've heard is that if you give the company a reason to pay you for a medical condition, you're actually giving them a medical reason to fire you (with no union job protection). I'd be curious to see how many actually took this option.

But again, why are we now comparing our labor negotiations to the FA's? They have had unilateral work rule changes implemented that we refuse to consider. Cherry-picking single items is a waste of energy.

There was a Simpsons episode about this, when Homer purposefully makes himself obese so that he can work from home wearing a moo-moo.

A5S