I think your missing some big big pieces of information. Check how many days they worked for that money vs us. Check their schedule against one of our wide body guys. Atlas isnt bad, but i think youd be shocked how low their pay and qol is pound for pound.
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Its good to get to learning about airlines finally but you're gonna need someone to walk you through pay, days off, rigs, comparable pay for equipment, extention rules. I think youre going to be stone cold stunned when you find out what youre signing up for at atlas.

 

until an arbitrator forced a contract on them, Atlas 747 CA pay was less than our 350FO pay

even now their 777 CA pay is only $2-3 above our 2019 737 pay. And 747 CA is less than our 7ER pay.

Plus all the work rule/Retirement differences

 

Also remember, cargo has a lot of demand right now, my friends at Atlas are picking up OT more that we are picking GS. My friends seem happy, but got disappointed when their contract came down and their pay rates didn’t jumped as much as they wanted to.

They also fly to some hazardous places and get payed extra for that.

I also believe single pilot international flying will come first to Atlas/FedEx/UPS than Delta.

W2 is important, but not as important as QOL + W2. My friend W2 are as much as mine, but I’m home more than them.

 

Perdiem would need to double just to keep up with cost of living/ inflation on this contract. Not to mention major improvements in vacation/ training pay .
Hopefully we won't settle for some mediocre deal this time.

 

I was thinking the same, so I went to look at the contract comparison the NC recently published. It lives on the DALPA MEC page, Hot Topics, Contract 2019, lower left the red box that says "Contract Comparison".

It's pretty good product. To sum up we are not the leaders, but we are not last either. We are probably a solid B-/C+ compared to the others.

Some nuggets (top of scale CA & FO rates):

We lead 350, But lag 330/76
We lead 75 of the pax carriers
we lead 737/321 (except SWA 737-800 pay exceeds in 2021)
Lag 320 behind UAL and AA
Lag 220 behind AA and UAL (neither has any yet but they have the rates)
Lag only UAL and UPS for domestic per diem
Lag UAL, FedEX, UPS on Int'l per diem

Just a highlight. It is a good document. If you haven't I would go read it.

Again, we are not the best, but we certainly are not the worse either. Mnay areas for improvement though, so I wouldn't let the detractors here convince you otherwise.

 

This. I think that all airlines are pushing for max productivity, min credits, max shareholder benefits. I can see is getting some solid gains, but I’m not holding my breath on anything extraordinary, or even close to what we want/think we deserve. Which is sad.

 

Solid post.

I don't think this contract needs to be about restoration or peer seniority lists; these executives get together and cost out what they can afford and what will leave everyone with a level playing field. It seems that within a year or so we all have about the same pay rates, give or take a few dollars. IMO, this contract is about inflation and duration. Someone posted inflation is 10% since 2019, I disagree. Home prices are up 40-60%, the S&P is up 50%, oil (which is the number one commodity traded around the world primarily in USD) is up 30% and looking to double by summer. I would say this contract needs to reflect C19, C23, inflation and some language to deter the company from not negotiating in good faith at the end of the next contract. Reroute was an internally manufactured reduction in QOL outside negotiations, a change in status quo. I am not willing to give up gains to restore it, I do however expect to be paid as if we had negotiated for it. So no, I am not asking to be paid some pie in the sky number, the numbers I am looking at reference 2019 and JUST inflation; real world inflation, not BS government CPI numbers. I cannot imagine being a newhire with flight and college debt, no inflatable assets, and trying to buy a $1 to 1.3m starter home in SEA, Socal, SLC or MSP. I left out NYC on purpose.

 

Total vacation value is also worth looking at… and the numbers don’t even account for our inability to be paid for touching trips, or be guaranteed additional time off before vacation, or where the allocated vacation weeks fall in the year.

Something that doesn’t jump out at a casual glance at the comparison document is how many airplanes we operate at the top pay rate. Unless I’m mistaken, and unless you’ve had a table saw accident, you can count on your fingers and toes how many airframes we have that pay top rate (16). United has TEN TIMES the number of top-rate airframes (164).

I don’t have it in front of me but I don’t think the comparison models a typical career progression. Wide body access as a newbie through age 65 is so much greater at so many other carriers, that “beating them” with our 737-800 rate is laughably irrelevant in the bigger picture.

So…our JVs supposedly give us a competitive cost advantage, we’re being paid at 3-year old inflation-destroyed rates, our non-unionized mechanics and flight attendants presumably save Delta expenses over their unionized counterparts at other carriers, we have the longest and most onerous seat locks in the business, until recently our newbies paid for their own uniforms and hotels, we don’t burn any EC or FC seats on domestic deadheads unless they can’t be used for revenue or pax upgrade, we rarely get domestic meals catered, we make our own deadhead reservations, we have possibly the worst IT interfacing in the business, we’ve cut every department to the bone to reduce expenditures and shift workload to the pilots, our self-insured health care premiums and coverage are horrendous (and worsening), we’ve slashed expenditures on FC passenger meals and drinks, we’re apparently serving canned wine (while wasting none on deadheading crew members), we have a magical refinery like no other, we haven’t paid holiday pay or otherwise incentivized workers with pay multipliers, our reduced-rate employee confirmed travel rates are often more than the street price, we usually can’t use our “free” travel passes for lack of availability and our own metal doesn’t go where we really want to go anyway, AND most importantly (?), we have a balance sheet that the others supposedly envy. Oh, and we wear magnificent hats.

I’ve heard pilots will be attracted to us over others because of our balance sheet; can someone explain how that’s helping me right now? Did our peers just eat their shorts on bankrupt JV partners like we did?

Kinda seems like there’s room for us to either fix all of that crap, or expect to ratify a B+/A- contract pronto. Why in the absolutely duck do we accept middle of the pack when we supposedly have all of these built-in efficiencies and cost savings?

 

Preach

Filler

 

All great points Ted. Totally agree with what you are saying.

I just highlighted the pay rates as that what nantanoku (sp?) was talking to RE; the Atlas comment

The contract comparison is worthy of a reading by everyone to get a flavor for how we stack up. You're correct about the fact the comparison does not show the along the entire career earning stuff, the NC only used the top rates of CA & FO for comparisons.

You mentioned JVs. Some good comparisons of us to the other carriers. We have way more than our closest peer. Is that a competitive advantage? Business wise maybe? For us pilots maybe not so much as that is the high top of scale type of flying. Its not balanced as I think we have what, about 20+ grievances in the JV arena alone?

C23 needs to certainly account for inflationary erosion of pay.

I'm a swing for the fences kind of person. However, IRL we are in mediation. Not sure how that will throttle our progress on this next contract. history has shown the NMB favorable to management.