It's been a few years so I'm not 100% clear on the details, but, this really didn't have much to do with scope, per se. We continued to allow Delta to operate 76 seat aircraft permitted by the Compass LOA after the Compass wind down for whatever reason. During the post covid spool up, we suddenly remembered it was there and objected to them unparking aircraft because we didn't have a flow down. Delta then negotiated a flow up in exchange for allowing a flow down at Endeavor. Delta says, poof, you have your flow down. We can fly them. We filed a grievance that the LOA only applied to Compass, who is now defunct. No new scope language or application was negotiated. Then we lost the grievance in arbitration handedly

help me out here. What is the purpose of acknowledging a trip?

Yes, it was a scope issue, dealing with the scope section of the Delta pilots working agreement. (think the reference is 1 B. 46. but don't think anyone cares enough for me to look it up). Bilateral flows were a big thing following the Comair example of their MEC Chair trying to refuse Delta pilots a right of concurrent seniority while on furlough. Then, after the NWA merger DL had WAAAAY more pilots than it needed. I was repeatedly told "our scope section works by not working." Lee Moak was able to argue against furloughing the bottom DL pilots because of the cost of the flow-down.

Anecdotally: I YS as much as possible and almost de-qual'd on my second (or third) narrow body displacement for lack of flying on a narrow-body jet! DL could have easily flushed me for 18 to 24 months, so the flow down worked (by not working) to keep my job. This time it likely would have functioned in the same way, but there were more variables (pandemic, government action to protect jobs, etc...)

Endeavor's contract conflicted with Delta's (on several occasions). One of the President's primary responsibilities is to make sure that the bargaining they authorize does not create a conflict between ALPA working groups. This even goes higher that the Admin Manual to the Constitution of the organization. It is the reason the President's signature is even on an ALPA contract.

So they don't call you to tell you "Congratulations, you've been awarded a trip."

Sometimes they call repeatedly, sometimes not at all.

It has not been my experience that it somehow is a proffer once you've accepted it (esp with >8 hours to report). Had a strange one where ARCOS was instructed NO to selction of a rotation I did not want a GS that conflicted with a school event (NO to all). Later that night ARCOS called with a trip that I said YES to, accepting the ONLY trip displayed. ... I got the first trip because it was still bouncing around several thousands of numbers below me and when I swiped yes to the trip it gave me the earlier trip even though it was not displayed. Did NOT acknowledge it. Has to burn an APD to get rid of it. (CPO gave me back the APD after an hour long conference with skeds).

Technically true, but the application gets complex. Much like Judges have not only the authority, but the obligation, to vacate obviously aggregious convictions, awards and indictments, they almost never do. Doing so attracts a lot of scrutiny, and by doing nothing, they always get to carry on with their jobs and lifestyles unimpeded. So there's enormous pressure to just let things slide and, hey, who cares anyway because they can appeal in a decade or two anyway, so the system works, right?

When was the last time national withheld signature? The last I can remember was CCAir in the early 2000's. There have been many, many deals that effect other airlines. Argueably, all new contracts and LOA's do. Therefore, anything concessionary in any way, is concessionary for all one way or the other.

Yet ALPA almost always allows concessions to go through when a pilot group votes for them for whatever reason. Wether its mainline concessions that kick off a cascading round of competitive concessions for all others, regional vs regional "predatory bargaining" for growth (or even for existing flying) or new CBA's for arbitrage/Ponzi scheme start ups, almost everything is signed off on, almost all the time anyway.

Yet if everything that meets the criteria wasn't signed off on, ALPA would quickly shatter into a million pieces anyway because the piot groups who ratify those agreements do so for their own individual motives. Imagine if whoever was first after 9-11 (USAir?) wasn't allowed to sign concessions. The "greater good" would have been served in theory, but they probably would have instantly went independant and done whatever it took to survive anyway. For the regionals, there was/still is just enough represenative arbitrage (IBT and non-union shops) in direct conflice with ALPA anyway, so ALPA witholding signature on a predatory marketshare grab would just see those shops grow even more during such times.

The only thing that would mitigate that would be one or two tiers of NSL's, ratified by all pilot groups including the most healthy at the time, and somehow binding on all airlines despite the costs it would inflict on them.

What's the answer? I don't know. As a first step I've always been in favor of eliminating the punitive "first year pay" (and sometumes second year too) being dramatically lower than the yearly steps when compared to 3rd year pay. We've come a long way towards remedying that. Hotels, uniforms and other things have taken some of the sting out of starting over. However its likely not enough to stop another in-distress airline from negotiating whatever they need to survive.

The answer(s) are found in the Admin Manual. Literally the Flight Crew Training Manual for the Consitution and ByLaws VOL1.

A rejected takeoff for not having the flaps set begins with numerous procedural errors going back to the after-start flow.

Applied to scope, the Admin Manual lays out the committees, who should be on these committees, the work and the reports they create, who they report to and how they resolve conflicts BEFORE the President authorizes bargaining and even a redundant error-catching process to follow if bargaining gets to a point where there is a conflict. (lets call that these the after start, analysis of the WDR, the Taxi check and the before takeoff checklists)

In any event, ALPA MEC Chairmen should be calling Executive Boards any time bargaining ends in a demonstrable error affecting thousands of careers. I've not seen anyone ever address bargaining failures. Given our safety culture, I do not understand why those same tools are not applied to our representational work.

The Admin Manual contains the collective wisdom of all ALPA Reps up to that point in time. It is negligent of our administrators to not know what is in that book and live it in their administrative careers serving pilots.

To go further, and I read the ARCOS guide, can someone explain "Auto-acknowledge" and "Auto Accept". I do not fly green slips normally, and have not since we adopted ARCOS.

I want to not get the crazy VRU calls at all hours, but I also don't want to accept a trip (have it added to my schedule - accept might be the wrong term, see my confusions here?) until I get to QC it. So how would one set that up with ARCOS and the iCrew ranking preferences?
(If there is a union comm on this please point me to it and I'll read it, I might have missed it along the way)

TIA.

The "get out of jail" feature is not unconditional

Bottom line:
Y Auto Accept: Trip is yours
Y Auto Acknowledge: You've waived the proffer

So with this 23 M. &. change the company can now call all players all night unless you put in a Do Not Call direction in iCrew. If you have N to Auto Acknowledge the company has to skip you for rotations reporting in <12 hours. If you have Y to Auto Acknowledge you have waived your proffer and the trip is YOURS - go fly it, no whining.

This whole mess is a degradation of pilot QOL and ostensibly will filter out the lookie-loos and the senior folks who benefit from errors in trip coverage. Literally a transfer for tens of millions of dollars from pilots back to Delta. For those of us who use the system to fly (as opposed not to fly but get paid) it is not a huge loss and possibly a gain. What we will have to watch out for is out of sequence coverage where crew scheduling can use the timing of trip coverage to sniper shoot the least costly (either in pay or time off) because many will be using Y & Y to catch the broken rotations < 12 hours to report.

Thanks BB. I'll go read that sched alert. I guess I missed that one - figured as much.

It needs to be clear that both steps are proffers. A pilot can decline at either step.