You can't please some of these guys. If we had more Asian WB then it would be "not enough Vietnam WB.

Outside of profit sharing, financial results are the owner's (shareholder's) problem. Employee wages are an expense that is subject to inflation just like jet fuel and gate rental.

One hour of pacific = 2 captain hours. One hour of Atlantic is 1 captain hour. Scope is about protecting pilot jobs at Delta Air Lines. Giving away an hour of 4 pilot ops for an hour of 3 pilot ops is a HUGE loss if the agreement is written that way. We need the final language before getting too deep into debating the merits of scope. I'm all for having flexibility in fleet deployment that helps maximize profits as long as it protects Delta Captain jobs in the process.

I could have a lengthy geopolitical debate, but now is not the time or place.

China is in China’s way. A single party/authoritarian system always fails. China is on the way out.

Better tell the new town crier Trip7 that. The rosy world of getting hired at the beginning of the wave and NB A seem to make him think he should run to all the SM sites and decree what a great deal this is. $ can make one do shady things.

Not sure if that was directed at me or not, but to recap, guy expresses concern that a potential lack of hard theatre restrictions might impact the availability of future widebody positions in his Pacific-dominated domicile and your response is mockery and dismissal? “Not enough Vietnam WBs?” Classy.

I wonder who directly was negotiating this opposite our NC?

there is a difference between what you said and the point that we don’t want to give up pacific (or Atlantic or SA) protections. Explaining the staffing implications of shifting from one theatre to another is not to say one isn’t “real WB flying”, but pointing out why it’s not as simple as “a WB job is a WB job”

lets see what the language says before we start getting too excited one way or another.

I bet if you made this statement to an NMB mediator they'd probably disagree.

LOL You must be joking. With each passing day, the possibility of getting a retro check that matches inflation gets farther out the door. You can say 'no' all you want, but a 4 year 20% retro check ain't gonna happen. Brace yourself for either a small first year raise and full retro or a big first year raise and a signing bonus. You are right about the LCP part though. And I can also tell you that if the LCP portion of the contract isn't eye watering, they are gonna lose a bunch of them.

He did come here right on queue pumping this thing like it is the best thing since sliced bread and no one even knows what's in it. Sorry if some of us are hard to please when it comes to protecting our own jobs despite the people on here working against their own best interests.

The devil is always in the details. It’s not unwise to reserve judgment until we’ve seen them.

His own best interests are being served by the extra $ he receives to show how enthralled he is about an agreement that isn’t even written out yet.

I haven't even commented on the AIP. I'm waiting until the language is released. Lots of people picked up their goalposts when the AIP was released and that's the point I was making

If the Language matches the Highlights presented by the Chairman, it's a good deal

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Come on, Musk tweets are worth a lot of laughs.

But honestly, we need to stop arguing and wait to see the language. THEN we argue the merits or pitfalls. THEN we vote.

“Yeah, some of them called me out, what should I say? Mention the Chairman’s letter? ok I’ll try that.”

lolol no freaking doubt

That wasn’t the case though. He pointed out that 2As+2Bs flying on a plane does not equal 1A+2Bs flying on a plane. Our resident real estate expert didn’t say it was about the specific destination.

Without actual language trip can’t claim a slam dunk just the same as no one else can claim a clear loss. We’ve got to wait on the actual agreement to decide.

That is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day…

Has anyone read the current Section 1 lately?

It might be enlightening, and helpful when making a decision on how to vote.

Nah, they're too busy on here pontificating about a Global Scope AIP that they haven't even seen the language for .....;)

Bingo. Everyone needs to breath… wait for language.

Yes.

A majority of the current language is based on capturing Delta pilots' share of the company's commercial agreements with partners. Each separate Joint Venture has our share, based on the amount of flying the company expected to perform. Sections 1 E 2., and 8. act as major "catch-alls" in case the company fails to negotiate a JV scope section with ALPA. AeroMexico serves as an example of 1 E. 2. coming into play. 1 E. 2. requires that if more than 40% of the seats in a market are sold as (in this example) DL seats then the flight must be flown by a Delta pilot.

Our current scope ties the pilots to the company's cash flows and commercial agreements. The result is easy to explain on an excel spreadsheet, but more difficult to write in plain language.

The PROBLEM our current Scope Section has is that the company's commercial agreements are not functioning normally as a result of COVID. The international route network, partner flying and our flying, are a mess. The company has asserted "force majure" allowing them to escape compliance for now.

As things are rebuilt we could take several paths. One would be to modify the existing language to capture the new agreements the company builds with partners around the world. The complexity of this task requires a highly functional team of managers and ALPA negotiators, experienced and trained on what currently exists, to fix it. Today's ALPA Reps are several generations removed from that work.

So a new generation of managers and ALPA reps have set out to make a much simpler scope section. The genesis of this new language was >>MANAGEMENT's DEFENSE<< to prior scope violations (which were settled in our favor for $30,000,000.00). This is confusing because ALPA's new Reps have bought into management's idea and now proclaim it as their own product. The sides were as follows back in 2012-15:

• ALPA: Section 1 P. 4. required DL fly 50% (with a 1.5% variance so the real limit was 48.5%) of the trans-Atlantic capacity on widebody jets. Management failed to do this. Pay us the difference!
• MANAGEMENT: Yes, we violated your contract, but we flew those airplanes to other places and you were not really harmed. Give the pilots $0
• Result: $30,000,000.00 to the pilots (we "won" in negotiations)

A year later we went through a rapid period of 5 scope chairmen in less than two years. The new, new, new, new Chairmen and the reps didn't really get why we had such complexity in our contract and concluded our protections have "too many words." The easy answer was to just make a global balance; we get half of whatever (the questions of block hours or capacity, crew augmentation or not, were not fully formed) Management literally heard a chorus of pilots now singing harmony on the very defense management offered to escape scope and reduce its obligation to perform European flying. So yeah, now they're talking.

The hang-up on giving management what management wanted was that management really did not want a penalty that cost them anything for noncompliance and pilots rightfully figured the RLA is stacked against us. This was resolved with some sort of staffing formula. Here we are.

The thing everyone has to remember is these are a balance. Half of 10 is 5. Half of 2 is one. When the entire planet shuts down for COVID (SARS, speculative home buying, speculative oil contract purchases, whatever ****-show Goldman Sachs or Deutchesbank thinks up to **** us; whatever) that balance swings to a number that does not help us.

Absolutely nothing in our current scope prevents the company from growing. In fact our scope requires it. But, the main point of sope is JOB PROTECTION when things go badly. It is to protect our junior pilots and all of us in a merger.

There’s the carrot talking point for the junior folks, always nice to establish that. Given your history with these scope agreements and your love of previous MEC’s, it begs a question….Why is this agreement better than the ones you and your friends negotiated?

Did you ever look at the balance sheet when Anderson was voted off the island? I think we were down to $7B in debt and would have been at zero by 2019 with probably $15B in cash. And hostile takeover? BS.

The pricing of pilots will be at market, its basically a fixed cost as there is a shortage. We have chosen to prolong negotiations and that means we are likely up to bat last. So UAL offers, >16%, AAL +, SWA goes ++ and the LCC follow suit. What I refuse to do is offer Ed a discount on my rate so he can pay down debt AND resume early burn backs, of which contribute nothing of value to the company going forward. Trust me, Ed wants to be first to the buy backs.

Back on thread target, we don't have JV CS agreements for any of the new entrants (Korean, Latam, Aero Mexico). Delta can put code on 40% of the seats on a city pair of a foreign carrier's flight. If they need more we have an insane amount of 330 and 350s coming that I am constantly reminded by Trip7 are growth.

Or are they?


PWA SEC 1 E.2

Without the consent of the Delta MEC, neither the Company nor any Company affiliate
will enter into or maintain an agreement or arrangement with any foreign air carrier
performing international partner flying that permits the Company or any Company
affiliate to book or ticket under the Company’s or Company affiliate’s designator code,
reserve, block, and/or purchase for resale:
a. more than 40% of the passenger seats in any month on any pair of flight segments in
a city pair (e.g., CDG-ATL-CDG) of such foreign air carrier,

I understand the issues in the Pacific and acknowledge war is inevitable with time. However, global production balance will have to be better than ^^

The narrative is:

ER's will be around another decade with new LCDs, with 2017 captains to EU

400s (not the old big 400s) are going back to international, with newhires

Record deliveries of 330s and used Latam 350s

Because this narrative has been beat into my head I think we are best served doing greater than half of all our flying on our own metal.

The global production balance will need to stand out as a solid win or nothing of which I have been told to believe is true. To me that means no tricks, cure periods, etc.

This is a worthwhile read, thanks for the history.

I’d be very interested in a scope comparison document that dives deep into the scope agreements we have and are proposing, with those in place at AA and UAL. Folks forget that it’s possible to fly to more than a handful of destinations in Europe…you just have to invest in your own capital instead of someone else’s.

I’m not thrilled with the jobs cure proposal for scope violations because I think that will honestly be exploited, and I’m not thrilled with global flexibility for the exact scenario you spell out above. I was against voting for this scope deal outside of a broader TA, but maybe killing it early could be a better idea!

The problem, Bucking Bar, is that according to my reps, the companys position is that the transatlantic protections in 1P and the Virgin protections in 1R were both superseded due to the JVs being combined in a new agreement called Blue Skies. So apparently everything you just said is OBE.

With the recent track record in arbitration, if we were forced to grieve the company’s disregard of old JV deals that no longer exist, in 3 years time an arbitrator would find a way to screw us again.

It seems you may be working with rather stale facts. I’ll withhold judgement until I actually see details. But so far, as advertised, there seems to be quite a few new protections, which currently have none. The devil will be in the details.

I think the other problem is that there is this assumption that there is zero institutional knowledge or experience in DALPA when that simply isn't true.

I’m pretty sure Bucking Bars replacement on the scope committee is part of the NC that negotiated this.

Again, I’m skeptical but also pragmatic enough to realize what we have in Section 1 hasn’t been working for a long time. Pointing to the glory days of the Moak era for scope wisdom is like asking Edison what his opinion is on LED ballast circuitry design.

Agree somewhat. The old Admin did a great job with RJ Scope. With JV scope they did a decent job but nobody knew that Delta's JVs were going to morph into a large, multi airline operation that spans the globe. This new deal based on the highlights, seems to adapt to the new reality.

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Scope has to keep up with the times and even be forward-looking to capture our share of new opportunities in business structures management has not even thought of yet. The provisions that protect labor must constantly evolve and so we must have new scope language.

I would disagree that the current provisions "haven't worked." Various administrations have won scope grievances and obtained settlements in our favor; demonstrably they have "worked." We have also avoided furloughs going back to the thousands of pilots which were carried extra after the merger.

The perception exists that JV partners have grown at our expense. Our current language takes it JV by JV to ensure we get our share of each JV's flying.

Joint Ventures are the opposite of a zero-sum game. The concept behind the combination is to grow market share and gain pricing power. Literally that a rising tide raises all boats. Delta has very limited power over its partners' plans to add jets. Often the partners overshoot and when they have too much they aim those airplanes at America. Delta tends to run from engagements that result in overcapacity and ticket prices.

Delta would rather run and redeploy than fight. As I understand the broad outline of this "global scope" arrangement, we loosen and reduce requirements that Delta perform flying within any particular JV, and provide the company flexibility to redeploy those jets to underserved (often undercapitalized) parts of the world (mostly South America).

Nothing in our scope today limits Delta in any way from growth in any direction. We just require our fair share of specific JV's and if those JV's have been rebuilt, then we need to reallocate and seek to increase our share.

From a pragmatic standpoint, I do not see how ALPA or even the company has any control over compliance with a global metric. Every JV and even every codeshare adds thousands of variables and permutations. If we can not get one JV in compliance, how do we affect a dozen? To me, it seems a feel-good aspiration without any effective control.

Guessing First Break is Heiko or someone else not exactly flying the line. That's fine. We need people from the Admin to explain this new deal to us.

How is a defunct production balance “forward looking”? And what in the contract compels the company to match the growth of our partners currently?

Like I said, according to people much closer to the process than I, the production balance in 1P and the silly step stair scheme in 1R (which has never protected anything to date) are topics of dispute due to the new Blue Skies agreement.

You have no idea what’s in the deal and what existing language the new agreement supersedes. I just see opportunistic revisionism and speculation in lieu of you picking up the phone, like I did, and calling your reps for information.

I have no idea what a Heiko is, and certainly can’t explain anything about the new deal. I just see a bunch of understandable hyperventilation about the new agreement, due in no small part to PTSD from the way your idols treated the pilot group for so many years. I’m willing to give the current leadership the benefit of doubt.

The 1 P. 4. violation was settled for $30,000,000.00; that's not nothing. Does that force AF+KLM to do anything? Nope. Will the new agreement force our partners to fly less, or us to fly more? OK, you can answer that.

I wrote that our agreement needed updating. Either you have a very low ability to comprehend what you read, or are just trying to stir up conflict where none exists.

That's why we need language that forces them to pull the code (at least on any and all excess flights) when they get out of balance. They can barf their flag carrier capacity hourly to every city if they want. They can do that anyway, at least until they run out of money. But they can't use our code to do it.

Australia is probably one of the better indicators for how this AIP (if ratified) will have worked in the coming few years. Clearly the DL-VAus one was heavily biased towards VAus not only from day one but for any amount of realistic growth. I don't think DL was really ever going to increase its share until and unless the market experienced dramatic growth.

Now that they're NB only (for now) and ditched us anyway, DL finally increased by 3-4 flights a week. Now there's a partnership with a NB only airline. Cool, that could help feed the network. But where will it be in several years? Will DL "invest" in Rex, they'll get WB's and we'll go back to 7X a week (or less?) and they'll get all growth under the cover of a "global balance" while we cover it with other theater flying that we were going to do anyway?

Not really. What I did read was a bunch of out of context platitudes dug up from times past, somehow overlaid as wisdom on the current state of affairs wrt global scope. It makes one question what your intentions are.

No argument on the dollar value of Donatelli’s settlement agreement from 2015. Regardless of your viewpoint that the previous monetary settlement was appropriate, I recommend you do some due diligence on whether any of the current leadership believes a violation of 1P would produce the same result today, or in the future.

We may not control how many or what kind of airplanes a partner flies…but surely we can keep track of how many seats we sell on JV metal and how many seats they sell on our own? I don’t care if partners or competitors grow if it’s not in my control…I care about how much Delta flying is being done by Delta pilots.

I like that cure.

That is how 1 E. 2. works. If more than 40% of the seats are DL code, the flight (city pair) must be flown by DL pilots.

Bingo! DL having flexibility is great and all, but certain markets need to be balanced with the specific JV partner. Global scope could just allow reshuffling the fleet around to different markets not tied to a JV partner, meanwhile the JV partner increases their transborder flying to America, capturing all the growth in that market.