We’ll see…

Filler

 

tWe also have a rapidly building reputation of an airline whose best hiring times have passed. The 13,XXX+ guys/gals I fly with who are mid-30s or older certainly realize their career progression will pale in comparison to what me and my peers are getting. They take some comfort in the fact that our financial position is far better than the rest of the legacy carriers, but not in line with SWA, FDX, and UPS. I'm telling them that if FDX or UPS calls they should seriously consider going (I'm not a fan of SWA but I'm sure some would leave us to go there as well). Those two companies are still in growth mode, and their business models will better support a downturn than ours, and will excel in another covid like environment where we are toast.

While management clearly does not see the need for a rock-solid contract right now, it is in their best interests to do this, soon. AAL is getting ready for 2000/yr hiring for 4-5 years. As bad as their financial situation is, that will be a preferred destination over us by next summer. If Kirby does go through with his growth plan, add UAL to the list. We could be the #6 choice soon enough.

 

We can ask for anything we want. Asking and achieving are two different things. Historically the key to success under the RLA has been bringing your peers up with you. That moves the ZOR up. A rising tide lifts all boats. It’s interesting that the forum has hundreds if not thousands of posts about what we are owed, demand, want and need but virtually zero posts on how to achieve those goals. I don’t really know what our current strategy and table positions are but I do know within a narrow window what our opener was. The opener doomed us to failure. The architects of the opener were advised that it was a bad strategy but failed to head the warnings or study what worked in the past.
The problem now is the MEC has painted itself into a corner. The MEC has set the bar for what is ratifiable and it’s way higher than they can actually deliver. The out is to wait until American and United produce a contract and then blame them for failing to raise the bar when they produce a TA that’s a sliver of the opener. The funny part is we had lots of posts back in 2019 about waiting as long as it takes to get the right contract. Now you see post after post about inflation and time. Table positions at American and United have been mostly publicly defined. If you want a dose of reality look them over.
The question becomes what is really the goal. Is it the best possible contract that can be achieved or to pound your chest and scream?

 

Serious question, because I wasn't here. Everyone loves to tout the 2000 (2001?) contract and how great it was...and we're told we can't compare our rates to inflation adjusted rates from that contract, "because it was an outlier." My assumption is that it was a contract well ahead of our peers at the time? How was that achieved?

 

Thats easy. We pattern bargained off the UAL contract and achieved parity to maybe a percent or two above them. Exactly what I have been discussing. UAL pattern bargained off what we achieved in 73N and 767/400/777 negotiations. In the 777 talks we opened for a wild and crazy number, saw half the airframes sold and basically settled for the companies opener. Also note that the 01 contract followed a concessionary contract. Most would not call TA2 concessionary.

From DALPA: sorry it did not format.

hhEarly ’90s: The aviation industry was in severe economic distress
yh1996: Pilots ratified a concessionary contract, which was amendable in 2000 yhOther employee groups had also taken pay cuts
hh1997: Record number of passenger enplanements
hhDelta Air Lines had achieved several consecutive years of profitability hhAugust 1999: Industry pattern bargaining environment for pilots changed
significantly, with UAL contract increasing pay rates as much as 28.5 percent
PRoCess:
hhThe pilot group was unified and looking for gains following several years of a concessionary contract
hhDelta 777 pay rates set the pattern bargaining bar
hhUAL pilots subsequently set a higher bar in pattern bargaining using the “Delta Dot”
(777 pay rates) to establish their pay rates
hhThe Section 6 timeline and process was followed; direct and mediated negotiations
took place before the parties were released into a 30-day“cooling-off”period hhSelf-help was avoided when a tentative agreement was reached while in “super
mediation”

 

Those were times of peak ticket prices. This is a sobering look at the trend of airfare not keeping pace with inflation, aka the Southwest effect.
https://www.bts.gov/content/national...ge-fare-series

 

I hope you’re right! I am just going off a small sample size of “new guys” that I’ve flown with. I’ve heard: “what is retro?” “How can we expect retro with COVID?” And “retro is cool for guys like you who’ve been around but for me a check for a couple grand vs. a signing bonus. I’d have to think about that one and it would depend on the size of the signing bonus.

I’m full retro all day, especially because these stall tactics by DL have gone on for almost a full contract cycle already! Stay unified…that’s all we can do. I’m off topic now, just wanted to let this MJP27 know that I disagreed with his view on retro! See you at picketing tomorrow.

 

How do you suppose UAL achieved a 1999 pay increase of 28.5% without a table position of “we’re due for a big raise”?

 

It isn't a Pi**ing match, but active duty plus 35k is still subpar to QoL and earning potential at DL at this very moment pre new contract.

 

This is what a lot of guys miss. I'm a big advocate of getting all we as an industry can, but a $400 ticket in 1985 should be $970 today. But what does that same city pair cost today? $400. There's a lot of reasons for that, airline revenue from tickets hasn't kept pace with inflation. Airlines however have broadly diversified their revenue stream from FF programs, credit cards, ancillaries, etc, and that revenue definitely needs to be captured. The problem is that when pilots demand a raise based on inflation, management will always point to the deflationary ticket prices and cry poor. The key is to capture that additional revenue. You guys profit sharing is still industry leading and a lot more pilot groups should model it to capture that revenue into pilot pay. Pilot unions would be wise to stop tying pay rates to aircraft revenue generated and go after the diverse revenue streams, as airlines keep looking more and more like banks and marketing/leasing firms.