Excellent points. We are definitely continuing the shift to lower paying equipment at mainline....cases in point 737-900 replacing 757. The commuters have all shed their lower paying planes yet we keep giving them more of the highest paid equipment.

I know that the C20 chairman must have missed something, but there is no way this is a cost neutral contract for Delta. There are some cost savings from not doing engine maintenance on RJ-200's and that money is ending up in our pockets. There are significant added costs, and costs that have a run rate over time rather than one time costs. I have the final costing summary open on my computer right now and it was not cost neutral for Delta, that is a fact.

Even if you do assume it is cost neutral for Delta, it is not cost neutral for pilots. The total value of money in our pockets is about $1 billion over the life of the contract. Some of that money would have been spent on RJ costs. So would you rather have that money in your pocket or would you rather send it to engine maintenance? If Delta has to send it to engine maintenance they are not going to give it back to you.

alfa,

What do you mean by this?

Well isn't that special ...
 

Las Vegas passenger counts on the rise - USATODAY.com

The number of passengers flying through Las Vegas is on the rise.

The city's McCarran International Airport handled 3.6 million fliers in April, an increase of 2.7% over the same month in 2011. That marked the 16th consecutive month of increasing passenger numbers, the Las Vegas Journal-Review reports.

And, for the January-through-April period, McCarran handled about 13.5 million passengers – up about 3% from 2011, according to The Associated Press.

Las Vegas' passenger increase is being fueled in large part by Allegiant Air, the Las Vegas-based leisure carrier that counts McCarran among its focus cities.

Allegiant – the fourth-busiest airline at McCarran – flew 210,065 passengers to or from Las Vegas in April, up 25.8% from the previous year.

The airport's busiest carrier – Southwest – saw passenger numbers increase 1.7% in April to 1.3 million.

Two big carriers reported steep declines in their Las Vegas passenger counts for April. Delta, McCarran's No. 3 carrier, carried 9% fewer passengers in April (324,767) than during the same month in 2010. And at American – McCarran's No. 5 carrier – April's passenger count (195,995) dropped 10.1% year-over-year.

What I find odd is dalpa saying that pilots want to work more based on survey results thus alvs going up when a lec member saying there was no such thing in the survey, only that pilots wanted to be paid more while working the same. Which is it?

I was intimately involved in the costing of this and I have all of the info. Tom made a mistake, this is not cost neutral. There were hours and hours of briefings so it is understandable if something was missed.

By the way, there is no direct value placed in many items that are very important to pilots for instance additional JV protections, additional furlough protections, the block hour ratio (which is the most valuable improvement to scope since I have been a Delta pilot), and many other scope gains. For some of these items, other than this negotiation, you would have to buy a controlling share of Delta stock to have this type of control. Despite the web board rhetoric, these were difficult items for management to swallow and in my opinion, many of them will not return in three or four years when we could possibly complete negotiations if this agreement fails.

Send it to engine mx. Let them choke on the 50 seaters. I'm tired of facilitating outsourcing for empty promises. The B717 deal is too uncertain for the price that RA wants us to pay. We have no guarantee that AT pilots aren't coming with the planes, we have no guarantee that they will be anything more then a 1:1 RJ deal by the time they get done parking DC9's, A320's and M88's that are too old to maintain, and we have no guarantee that RAH won't use their C-Series in Codeshare with Skyteam to take more Delta passengers away from Delta planes. Take it back to the table and fill the holes, then maybe I'll vote YES.

Is the holey scope language causing you to switch your vote? Interesting. If not watertight, I.e. Southwest, there will be end arounds. Lawyers and mbas get paid ugly $$$ to find the cracks.

There is simply no way we will fully recapture scope in one TA. Soutwest scope is not attainable that quickly.

*

Read the reps letters that are coming out. There was a long debate about this, but the reps as a whole felt that there was too much risk with going back. I'm not sure I follow the logic. You say we need this much more here and here to get 100% MEC approval and if they say, but we want this and this, you walk away consult the reps and go from there. You at that point still have a TA. They were in session so direction is very easy to give.*

That said, the reps debated it and chose to send it to MEC vote. The vote is 3:1 in favor of this. Talk to your reps about what they were thinking that week between the announcement of the TA and the vote. If they wanted to send it back, ask why they voted yes. There are a few of them from what I gather.


Now, we have a TA that is subject to MEMRAT. We can turn it down, and it puts pressure of the company to walk away from a comprehensive TA that solves a lot of issues for them, or they can fix about 30 or so line items and this can be a great product that all can be proud of. Its their decision, but it would have to be turned down and no one denies that there is risk with that.

Also, pay is not the only thing causing concern. Pilots have hit on othres:
1) Reserves do not get rotation guarantee nor do they get paid like a line holder

2) The ratio language appears to not guarantee growth but a dual accumulator if we shrink. (Demand to see how many mainline jets we see as growth off of this compared to the amount of RJs being sold) The ratio is based on domestic narrow body jets which have some long stage lengths.*

3) JV language covers profit/loss which includes revenue sharing but is effectively limited to those two types of monetary structures.*

4) RJET cutout on the holding company provisions. Could they fly C-Series for Skyteam and connect to AF flights?*

5) Horizion Q400 cut out. What is the beneift for this? Was it so we could include ALK in the holding company provisions without expempting the entire holding company or something else?

5) RLL recovery flying and the results of them being assigned or forced to pick up flying that would reduce reserve callouts.*

6) Reserves picking up reserve days. If called out does it hit the reserves required forumula? What percentage of GS's and WS's under 12 hrs will be gone because of this and the RLL language?*

7) Reserves being on the hook for ALV+15 if they are one minute under guarantee. What effect does this have on GS?

8) A follow on but what is the the math on what percentage the GS awards will go down now, and going forward?

9) Reroute was not touched. Remember the volcano and international guys being on the hook for 30 hrs past sign out? *Unchanged

10) Pay and how this lack of patterning will hurt UCAL and UPS in section 6 and FDX,and LUV who are going in later this year

11) Reduced profit sharing. Though monitized in pay are we really at a point where we need to shuffle the deck chairs?

12) Higher ALV thus causing many to work more, which requires less bodies in each seat

13) Avg day at 4:30 versus 6 which was what many wanted to see because it is indusrty avg among LUV, FDX, UPS etc. Why not an international breakout if 6 could not be achieved for domestic ops.

14) Low increases to per diem and international override

15)The RJ's were hard limited and now we are upping the large RJ limit to help facilitate the companies needs, but not getting decent/liner returns.*

16) overall concern for the vague language in many parts of the document

The positives I have heard/see are:
1) Better section one provisions. Many see it as a gain to see flying returned to mainline for the cost involved. They see their capt seat or hiring to get them off the bottom.*

2) JV protections are better and spell out the need for a production balance in a few situations.*

3) Holding company protections are better. Makes another republic holdings impossible to have*

4) Furlough protections are better

5) Pay is better though no where near their mins.*

6) Reserves get paid more and can pick up more pay if wanted

7) Better vacation pay

8) Better distance learning pay from 3:1 to 2:1

9) Increased per diem and international over ride

10) growth or at least the possibility of growth with the SNB

11) Downside protections wrt to RJ's*

12) Early Out that nulls the work rule efficencies at least initally.*

13) better sick bank with no more 75% pay

14) 1% increase in DC in 2014

15) Short duration deal with some protections to start talks in early 2015.
**
Its not a total list, but just one that i have complied from posts e-mail and phone calls from the last week.

DYODD. Read the langauage and determine if the language is tight enough for you, your family and the pilot group as a whole.