Verdell

Plenty of "juniors" endured setbacks/sacrifices during the Lost Decade that you never saw (or are intentionally blind to.)

Meme In Command

Most of my response is pointing out your incredibly flawed logic.

If ALPA is such a cush gig, how come there isn't a line out the door with pilots just itching to "volunteer"? Why are emails going out with them asking for volunteers to help with some committees?

What's the alternative? ALPA is full of our own pilots, so who do you swap them for?

hockeypilot44

This bothers me. The numbers don’t add up. They are giving themselves extended duty pay and sit pay to do 8 hour ALPA days. Most trips pay 5:15 per day in credit.

6 hours per day is absurd. Looking at my bid packet next month, there are zero 24 hour 4-days even with extended duty pay and sit pay. ZERO!!!!!!! They must have used widebody cstegories to skew the numbers.

rickair7777

I'm always OK compensating union folks, assuming they produce (the union collectively, not interested in auditing individual reps)

If they're doing their job, they work harder than line pilots. Different kind of work, but personally I'd rather fly than deal with people issues and the company all day.

CX500T

Where were you during the "lost decade".. Oh that's right at Delta. Detla after concessions / cuts still paid better than what most of the rest of us were doing.

Where were a lot of us "juniors" who got hired 10-15 years older than the average when you got hired? Oh that's right, sketchy 135, 91 or regional 121 jobs.

Or swinging pipe on an oil rig like I was.

Oh, and most of us "lost decade" guys get 20-25 years.

When I got my first captain upgrade bid in 2020.. Grumpy bastard "deadzoner" CA I was flying with the trip after bids came out (Jan 2020 AE) "This is BS I had to be at DL 12 years to hold CA on anything". Was still holding CA at a substansially younger age than I was. Had been an ER Captain since he was my age at the time. I learned how NOT to be a Captain that trip.

Another CA (the guy I was on a trip with when bid came out) "THAT'S AWESOME!" and we went out to dinner in SFO and he took me to a hole in the wall Chinese place that was awesome, and we spent the rest of the trip talking about "thing I wish I knew when I upgraded".. I learned a lot about how to be a Captain from him.

I try to be like the second guy. We had different paths (he was ex mil but long before the insane long contracts my generation had) and had been through 9/11, Bankruptcy, and Merger. If anyone still on property had the rights to be ****ed, he was in that group. (he was hitting 65 in a month after our trip)

Just because we didn't suffer at Delta, it doens't mean we were all sunshine, rainbows and miatas at our lost decade jobs. Even the crap/lower 401k contirbution was light years ahead of what we got, and based on a cut, but still way higher than what we made pay rate.

OOfff

lots of excuses and self-victimization here, but no willingness to put in a modicum of effort to fix it

chrisreedrules

I see absolutely zero issues with it. A pilot flying 18 days /month at Delta can make far more than a pilot sitting in the office making 108 hours of credit. You can make far more than 108 hours and work less than 18 days in a month.

The issue is that it can be difficult to attract talented volunteers when they simply can’t justify giving up the pay by just flying the line and picking up an occasional greenslip. This seems pretty obvious to me, but I’m sure the usual “rabble rabble” from the few will make a stink of it.

myrkridia

I'm undecided on this, but I think the PMRC arguments are worth considering. The characterization of union volunteers (we call them that because we are ALL union workers, they just raised their hand to serve the pilot group directly) as "trough dwellers" is disgusting and an anti-union trope that best serves management. Your ire should be directed at the company for the career setbacks. And for what it's worth, the capitulation of the pension did affect "junior" since we obviously do not enjoy the benefit of a pension or a mixed AB plan like our brothers and sisters at FedEx. If you wanted a final retirement windfall maybe you should have retired with your VEOP peers and saved yourself and all of us the heartache of your asinine rants.

As sailingfun has said, our ALPA volunteers work far more than the average line pilot. I'm often disappointed with the political views of my reps when I reach out to them, but the solution to that is to vote accordingly in the next election, not kneecap our union as a whole.

FangsF15

If I thought these were geniuine questions, I'd answer them. Because most of them acutally have decent answers (but don't support your rant).

flyforever1978

Could not have said it any better!! The "suffering" at Delta was nothing compared to what went on at the regionals during that time frame. These types will just never see anything positive. It's all everyone else's fault.