With Delta’s block hour cost more than doubling the last 12 years I don’t think things have been nuetral.

 

And where were we 12 years ago? Context is everything.

 

Watch my tone? Who are you....my mother?

 

Way too much emphasis on number of legs. There is nothing inherently tiring about 3, 4 and yes sometimes even 5 legs. Legs per day is merely a force multiplier of other issues. Mandatory, relentless, in your face plane changes every trip throuh a hub (and sometimes outstations) is what makes legs per day as big a factor as it is. Very long sits as well as mad dash rushes where a dozen people are absolutely panicking about pushing on time also exacerbate legs per day. And of course early report/late arrival trips with shifting circadians make every aspect of a trip worse.

Let's not joust at windmills by overemphasizing some 2 leg per day standard though. I'll take 4-5 Shuttle legs per day over 3 or even 2 legs with jacked up sit times, 4-5 concourse mad dashes and body clock destroying report times any day.

 

Your facts cannot be disputed, but let me propose a narrative to go with them.

"On an inflation adjusted basis, Delta pilots have made some small gains compared to a bankruptcy era contract. Record profit sharing payouts accounted for a substantial portion of the gain. Contributing further to the increase in block hour cost increase was the complication of multiple fleet additions and fleet retirements during the same period."

The doubling of Delta's block hour costs says more about fleet decisions and staffing mistakes than it does about pilot compensation.

 

My response was to the 117 limits. And yes, legs per day are in the 117 chart. The rest of your post is also correct but the FAA doesn't account for (care about) sit time or plane changes.

 

Screw selling vacation - how about going back to 6 weeks maximum. OK here is a compromise - we all get another week of vacation added to our accrual and only that week can be sold back.

Oh yeah - 4 hours/day for all vacation days.

Scoop

 

I’m with igotgummed - WTF is wrong with you people!! Selling vacation? Being able to fly more than ALV +15? No and hell no. How long you guys worked here? These have all been brought up before and the union has laid it out in detail why these would be terrible for our pilot group.

 

definitely agree with another week each and 4hrs/day.

I mentioned why the company may seek to allow people to fly over vacation, but hopefully we don’t allow a straight up sell back.

since you have been here awhile scoop, do you happen to know what vacation accrual used to be before BK? I’m assuming before PBS it was a trips touching dropped scenario like we see at WN now.

 

the start of all of this was in response to a poster saying there was no more productivity to give, my original list was not a list of things I want to see lost, but a list of thing the company may ask for that would definitely be productivity gives. I was not saying we should seek those things out.

now my opinion is that leverage is only good if you use it. And on the staffing front we have a ton of leverage right now. the company desperately needs more productivity for this coming summer and maybe next while they hire like crazy to fix their gummed up staffing. If we are able to secure permanent contractual gains in SCOPE, work rules, rotation construction, pay, etc. in exchange for *temporary* relief on some of these voluntary staffing measures for the next 2 years while they play catch up on pilot hiring, that could be a win.