That makes no sense. If anything, spreading the wealth around to the point that staying senior as an FO is a good deal kept others happily in the right seat, and made my upgrade possible.

What you suggest is how it was in the old days. The only people getting a good deal were those at the very top. The "pay your dues now and maybe the last 5 years of your career won't suck" .

This argument about watering down seniority is BS. Seniority means you get first pick, not a complete monopoly over a good deal. I'm not interested in a seniority list where the top take every plate from the buffet line. You get first choice. Make your plate and sit down. Not being able to take everything is not abrogation of seniority

There's many people here conflating putting in a slip when you don't want a trip with not wanting to be called for a trip that someone senior is going to take. Many of those same people weren't here and therefore, have no clue how it was before ARCOS.

I put in the slips because I want to be offered the trip. I don't want to be called for dozens of trips that won't get to me because a scheduler is being lazy and sends it out to the entire category every time. I'm not taking my slip out or putting do not call times in because again, I want to be called for the trip I can have.

I will never vote for anything that causes me to be called much more often for trips I can't have.

I don't know about 1 PD per PCS run, but I personally believe that it should go down the entire list and every pilot gets a chance to PD 1 rotation before the senior most pilot gets to PD their 2nd rotation. It's wild to me that a senior pilot can drop their entire schedule before the next guy/girl on the list gets the chance to PD even a single trip. Delta is the most seniority heavy air line I've worked for and it's not even close.

How do you quantify the value if you just change who gets paid? We know that pilot WS behavior would change, but it's not a certainty the company would pay for.

How about an even golder slip? With more zing, and more pep.

Your comment is the one that makes no sense. If 5% relative seniority is “flattened” to have similar schedule power as 80% relative seniority, then what’s the point of staying senior in a lower paying category rather than being junior in a higher paying category? The “unfair” schedule control that you accuse senior pilots of having is the exact reason why there are FOs who are intentionally staying senior in their seats, rather than bidding your junior captain seat. They’re the reason why you saw a fast upgrade. Take away the power that high relative seniority comes with, and you wouldn’t see that phenomenon anymore. Everyone would simply chase pay rates.

If you don’t like it then bid back to FO and be senior. Nobody is forcing you to be a junior captain. Historically, seniority has meant everything in this industry. It won’t be changing anytime soon.

Meme's Option #3, and Millennial's post both basically suggest the same thing, and, I'll reiterate - as long as we get a quid for it;

This is an elegant solution and I'd hope most everyone would see why.

are you very very junior? Please revisit this post in 10 years and ask yourself if anything has changed your opinion in that timeframe. Nobody is advocating sr dude gets everything while bottom guy gets nothing, but like anc suggested, seniority has been diluted a fair amount in the last few contract cycles so don’t be too surprised if posters don’t heartily agree with some of the ‘fixes’ outlined here.

the company can go a looooong way toward helping itself by choosing to cover trips earlier in time and treating the pilot group with respect. Instead they are focusing on a few problem children and punishing all of us for the few among all 17000.

Yeah this.

My guess his tune will change, again, and he'll be wrangling about how seniors can't get things like they used to....that is if we allow the juniors to water down seniority even more.

The dude upgraded in 24 months. His choice, I don't want to see our more senior people lose more horsepower that seniority gets them just to make his life and others in his cohort "more fair" for the junior

If he doesn't like it he can bid back to senior FO. Always a choice here.

But no, no more dilution to seniority here. We've had enough of that already.

Delta isn't even remotely the most "seniority heavy" place.

Exactly. Most companies don’t level premium pay, nor require meeting a trigger. Drop leveling doesn’t exist anywhere.

The suggestion that seniority be watered down further at Delta is comical.

Yeah.. compared to United, this pilot group is very egalitarian. Over there all premium pay is in seniority order, no leveling mechanism, no trigger. Jumpseat is seniority based too. A senior pilot can show up 15 minutes prior and kick you off. I like our way much better.... until I'm senior ;)

Edit: anc beat me to it and said pretty much the same thing.

Agreed, I think we've watered down seniority more than any other legacy. I remember when it told a UAL buddy that on the WB here, the Captain usually dolls out who gets the landings. Dude looked at me like I had two heads. They have specific rotations for FO and bunkie, so he said dudes would lose their minds if a Capt tried to do that.

Their duty pilot is also a CA only position. Not sure about sim IP positions, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a senior thing as well.

Let's let management deal with their self created problems. They chose to go straight to the assignment phase violating 23N/O long before the insinuated farming was a thing. The only reason you think/know it exists because since MOU 25-05 the 23M7 log is legally being enforced. They have been put on notice.

Prior to this it was the wild-west. I'd file ACE reports if I saw something fishy to make sure the right person got paid when I was bypassed. Now you see who got paid automatically. As recently as last year it was hit or miss wether they'd publish the harmed pilots name.

Full disclosure I've been paid 41 hours of 23M7 pay in my career at Delta. It's not as lucrative as many think. I've been passed over countless times on trips I was willing to fly, with schedulers telling me my union agreed to this provision. Very frustrating. I don't mind coming to work.

The reality is that your career has phases. As a jr guy you hope to just progress to a line, then better trips, then qol, etc.. Meme in command's and others position will change as their seniority increases. It's a natural paradigm shift.

Hopefully, the union uses this as leverage during this section 6 for the collective good.

I agree that PDs should be sequenced or counted like GS, but it's ridiculous to think that Delta is the most seniority heavy legacy out there. Truly.

Part of the reason Delta is such a great place to work is because it is a slightly flatter curve to have a good QOL. I guess that "sucks" for the absolute top of each heap, but having seniority concentrate at the top of every BES really only benefits 1 person. The vast, vast majority of people don't want a system to work like that, and I'm glad it doesn't at Delta.

the irony will be when guys like him (not targeting you alone, Mr mememe) reach age 64.999 and choose to keep flying for dal. It’s the same covetousness from the bottom and the top of the seniority list- just manifest in different ways.

anyway, staying on topic: problem solvers are great, and props to the poster Who started this thread in earnest. Maybe send this idea to your rep and see what he/she thinks about it? Those guys are way more dialed in to the actual details compared to a bunch of hacks on an anonymous forum

you're welcome. Those who were here before you paid for this ‘flattening’ as you call it and most of us are glad we did. It attracted talent that we need in order to maintain a strong viable career at a strong viable carrier. It gets a little tedious, however, to read complaints from coworkers in that group about the faulty team they chose to join. Oh and I guess get off my lawn but that’s a phrase that is certainly not in my generation’s vernacular fwiw.

to the topic: disagree with 1xpd per pcs run. A huuuuuge advantage to dal is that we can drop an entire month if we have the seniority to do so. Comes in handy once every few years. The company would love it if we volunteered this type of concession and would sharp shoot the manning and alv and rotation construction to ensure that nobody could clear their slate after 0700 on the 21st. No thanks

Get rid of Auto Accept.

If you don’t want nuisance calls, don’t put in a blanket slip. Tell it the hours you don’t want calls.

Or DND.

But putting in slips, and then complaining about getting calls for trips? Get out of here.

Unreal.

It is more important for trips to be covered than it is for you to be bothered. Turn your phone off.


This is the answer.

Batch sizes still result in slow coverage, and in each batch you STILL have people bothered and not being awarded trips.

Batch sizes are nowhere near as big of a deal as this group would have anyone believe.

Batch sizes are simply a rally cry that makes the chest beaters feel better.

Down with AA and up with DND. That should be the rally cry.

The company can cover trips as fast as they’d like, they just have to pay 3x to do it.

Any other concessions you’d like to give the company for free with no return while we’re at it?

No.

Let's say I want the next GS I can hold, so I put in a blanket slip. If I'm #20 on the list, why should I have to get 19 phone calls for other people's trips before mine? No thanks. I have a life.

This is the answer, if the question is "who can come up with the worst idea?"

Well thank you, sincerely. I came to the airlines on a whim and couldn't be happier. Chose Delta almost by dumb luck, especially knowing what I know now about differences between each company.

I don't have huge heartburn with the way PDs work anymore. I think there are plenty of other useful ways for those who are junior (me) to clear off bits of their schedule. Though, it's also one reason I'm a proponent of keeping the GS trigger in place.

I don’t believe you should have it both ways. Either deal with the calls in hopes of the GS, or “have a life” as you say and DND.

Don’t put in for a GS and then cry about it when you get calls.

Management?

good grief am I just grumpy tonight????

Mar are you applying for 4th floor positions and prepping for the interview on these pages? It is very possible and convenient to have it ‘both ways’ so to speak. Technology and our work rules provide the possibilities, especially as time passes and one’s seniority advances. Patience, things will get better, and pretty soon too! We’ve all spent time at the bottom of the ladder as fodder, it doesn’t last forever. Well it doesn’t have to unless one chooses to bid a category much higher than the qol he expects to generate. Patience. Let the union cook (in my gens vernacular).

edit: ya what immolated said but x100 words^

This again? No….sigh….

I just have a solution that will return everything to the normal order it was, honoring seniority, ridding of the free for all, but it might wake you up if you volunteer to be woken up.

“solution”

I know it will be solved. Just not as eloquently or simply as I recommend.

I call a spade a spade. AA is terrible for pilots and terrible for the company(which I stand by the premise that WE are the company). Mad at the execs? Ok I get it. But hurting the company doesn’t really hurt them anywhere near as much as most believe. That’s all.

AA en masse hurts all. Fact. Who started it? That’s not my argument.

“Simply”

out of curiosity were you on property before ARCOS? Just trying to gauge validity.

No matter how much you complain about it, thank goodness DALPA seems to be holding strong and waiting for section 6 (and completely ignoring your company-centric stance).

Let’s wait a couple more weeks to see how QS work.

“We” are not the people the company exists to serve unless you own substantial amounts of Delta stock. The company exists to make money for shareholders. We take a lot of money that would otherwise go to shareholders, and given how much money the company is making, we should continue to strive to take as much of our cut as we can. The company’s goal is to take as much of our money and give it to shareholders as possible.

We want the company to do well because that means we are doing well, but we should not be sacrificing pilot pay for the sake of the company when we are making billions in profit.

Why do you think this?

The biggest QS problem was/is that it was a big secret until it was already a done deal, not withstanding the fact that it didn’t go to MEMRAT.

Im a ALPA supporter, but don’t overlook the fact there are some reps who simply think “they know best” and will tell us we just need to get in line with their agenda.

im pretty certain there are conversations happening on the side. Probably going to end up wasting leverage yet again.

You are entitled to your opinion. However, I think you are pretty much on an island in this one.

As others have also said, many times here. I WANT that slip I've got a blanket slip in for. I just don't want (nor does my wife) to be woken up multiple times a night for trips I have no chance at getting! I should not have to miss/sacrifice that slip just because the company waits until 0300 to run the coverage.

The thing is, it's not a binary choice. There are multiple ways to 'skin the cat'. Batch sizes is one of them (and it WORKED). but there are others. Regardless, I trust our negotiators to address this in Section 6.

In the meantime, QS is literally around the corner (possibly next month, I hear). And that will address 98% of OUR problem. The company problem will have to wait for Section 6, and the quid better be massive to save them the double-digit millions a month they are wasting. At least, that's my opinion.

Just to keep things in perspective, we are about 50% bigger than before ARCOS

I was. If you answered phone, trip was yours. GS were not proffers. The good news was once you got phone call, trips was yours if you wanted it. Worked fine before GS explosion, then we needed a more efficient way to cover trips. The union has handcuffed the company. We all know solution is to get rid of OOBWS and AA. It’s really simple. Now what do we get in return for that?

Hope you don't hurt yourself carrying Mgmt's water.....

Seniority "diluted" over the past few contract cycles which means none or very few of the junior post COVID pilots were here to do anything about that. The older pilots themselves saw a heavily stratified career as not so great. The post-pension airline world no longer believes in slugging it out 90% of your career to maybe enjoy the last 10.

Its not a matter of changing our minds, its a matter of the perspective of the industry with which we came up with.

Oh boy, WRONG again. Year and half

Good points, but I have to ask, how many unsolicited IA calls are you getting? Also, there was a very interesting "experiment" on one of the Delta pilot FB pages a few weeks ago. A pilot followed the trip coverage process for a trip that had just popped into open time (next day trip, I believe; it was not a short notice trip in any case). Something like 50 (!) pilots let the ARCOS go to Auto Accept, a few actively "rejected" the award, and most just let it go the full 12 minutes, just to slow down trip coverage.

That means the claim of "I only use Auto Accept to avoid nuisance trip calls for trips I know I can't get" is often times a bunch of hypocritical crocodile tears. 50 pilots all had "first shot" at the trip--and it took that long for someone to accept it.

Most pilots mass blasting AA are doing so for cynical reasons, and we all know it. What? That ATL 320B, living in FLL, might actually not be able to make a SEA OOBWS trip? "Here's my shocked face."