1234

While I don't disagree that the per diem rates should be increased, ....ramen noodles????? Please. If you are eating ramen noodles when you are on the road, it is because you think that you need to make money with your per diem.

Jack Bauer

Some might say that about you as well. The only thing you look at starts with M and ends with O N E Y....meager as it might be on this proposal you will sell the farm for a few extra dollars. You dont give a shiz about anything else because it likely wont effect your position/airplane. Who cares about the other pilots in the group as long as you get YOURS right?!

alfaromeo

Well I can't believe any fNWA pilot not knowing that their management intended to park DC-9's and replace them with 76 seaters. It is in their bankruptcy filings in black and white. Surely you took the time to read the filings and the transcripts. They have a detailed analysis of how DC-9's were unprofitable, how even newer A-319's were overgauged for those markets, and how they needed the 76 seaters to fill in the gap. You can't have been surprised when they replaced the DC-9's, it wasn't a secret.

If I missed something in this Republic thing help me out. Delta cannot place any code, enter in a joint venture, or enter into a profit/loss arrangement with Frontier unless they negotiate with us. Frontier and Skyteam? Give me the route network on that supposal. Frontier feeds Air France and KLM in Denver to go to Paris and AMS? Isn't there already a pretty big carrier in Denver that flies to Europe? If Frontier wanted to feed someone wouldn't it be United?

I like your aircraft analogy. You sound to me like a guy that is calling go around at 30,000 feet because "well something might go wrong on the approach." Your "reevaluate and move ahead" path will probably mean three or four more years with no additional protections, so how does that reduce the threat? You sound like we are loosening restrictions rather than not tightening them enough for you. As some point our agreements with Republic will run out. At that time they will be gone because Delta is not happy with the Frontier play. Until that time, you cannot buy out of that contract, at least with the money we have to play with.

I see Frontier as a dying carrier. They have no route network, they have no mass, they don't even have a unique product like Virgin America, they are just one more struggling carrier living day to day on the ultra low labor costs they have. If there was some value there, then why hasn't someone ponied up the money to buy them? It can't be worth more than $100 million or so, Delta could buy them with pocket change. If I had a nickel for every goofy idea that Bedford trots out to the press to gain attention, then I would have a lot of nickels. Delta and United could squash Frontier like a bug if it was worth squashing them.

So if you can show me a way where one Delta passenger on Delta code gets on a Frontier jet, then I will reevaluate. Until then, it seems like a boogy man that has no teeth.

Carl Spackler

Translation: Don't you know that DALPA considers MEMRAT a rubber stamp? If we thought you actually needed to think about YOUR vote, we would have told you to vote NO. Instead, we specifically told you that YOUR MEC "wholeheartedly approves" of this TA...even though 5 Neanderthals voted NO. What else do you numbnuts need to know?

Carl

boog123

NO, No, no. It wasn't NWA telling us they were not going to park DC-9's, it was our union.

slowplay

This part is true but incomplete. They can park them, maintain them, or renegotiate them. Each one of those options is different for each airframe/operator in terms of cost and opportunity. Also, why have they slowed down the parking rate? It's becaue they've already gotten to the "low hanging fruit" that they could easily and inexpensively park. There's still 30 CMR CRJ-100/200 that they're getting rid of (no ASA savings as they're a wholly owned, but still have some financial obligations to those a/c) because they're old and the easiest to dump. After that, everything is under contract.

Not all of the DCI carriers are willing to do that. Witness PCL, which just asked the court to assume the ASA on its 141 CRJ-200's and rejected the ASA on 16 CRJ-900. It depends on the terms of each contract. Oh, the PCL CRJ-200's also were extended until their lease expiration (part of management's other option).

If these clauses were as you state, why did PCL assume the 50 seat contract and reject one of their two 76 seat contracts in bankruptcy? In court filings they said the Mesaba CRJ-900 and PCL CRJ-200 ASAs were both profitable. Those were renegotiated with the sale of Mesaba to PCL. It appears you are operating from obsolete information. The ASA's have been modified multiple times since the bankruptcies of NWA and DAL.

Again, see the PCL court docs. What you state above is not factual regarding PCL. The ASA's throughout DCI have changed (Compass and Mesaba sales, plus SKYW acquisition of former Horizon aircraft and turboprop parking) and are not as you represent. There are risk sharing and performance components in the agreeements, and they make profitability more difficult in certain contracts. The breakeven and unprofitable contracts are the ones that are the most ripe for renegotiation, but they don't take away ownership costs. The renegotiations as you describe only take away the DCI services agreement costs.
Your statement above was not correct. Also, can you point to any 3-1 or 4-1 swapouts at DCI? I can point to some 2-1 swapouts (Horizon CRJ-700's at ASA)

The 28 CMR aircraft are ones for which Delta has a financial responsibility. The 16 PCL CRJ-900's are PCL owned and along with the DCI ASA they fly under are being rejected by PCL. They may or may not be available for Delta's use depending on the bankruptcy court, but they are not Delta's to place.

The part I've copied here is partially accurate. Delta will be able to renegoatiate some of the 50 seat contracts. Some (much less than assumed here) 50 seat flying is unprofitable both for mainline and DCI partners, and those are the contracts that are ripe for consenual termination. But Delta still eats the ownership costs of parked airplanes in that scenario, they only avoid the ASA costs and penalties. Also, there will be need for 50 seat lift to backfill UAL's loss of Q400's from PCL, and AMR for their rejection of EMB-135/140 37 and 44 seat aircraft and I'm quite sure Delta would encourage current DCI partners to bid on that flying. Also, the maintenance cycles at current utilization rates is about every 7 years for payback, not 10. Again, the renegotiation gets Delta out of the DCI side of the costs, but not ownership costs for the aircraft.

alfaromeo

First, this forum and the ALPA forum are in no way indicative of the pilot group. On this forum Scope is by far the biggest issue and in the contract survey it was far behind pay. So reading this forum will not give you an accurate view of the pilot group.

It's not just money, it's all the rest. Please tell me how a negotiation will end where only one side wins. We won concessions from Delta even in bankruptcy with a gun to our head. So if you are waiting for some negotiation where only one side's issues are addressed then you better get used to this contract because you will retire under it. If you walk into the NMB and demand only concessions from the company, they will pat you on the head and tell you to come back when you are serious. Please go see the experience of the APA and USAPA for excellent examples of this type of demand bargaining.

Our reserve system is industry leading, our sick leave is industry leading. Our pay is industry leading. Our scope is ground breaking in the control we have over the DCI operation and its relation to mainline. Look at what you demand and what the company is offering in the TA from the perspective of an outside observer (the NMB) and not from the perspective of a pilot that is shooting for the perfect contract. We are already far ahead of our major competitors and about to lap the field. Do you think the NMB will support us moving even further out or will they put us on ice?

No one can guarantee you some growth or upward movement. We have laid the foundation to ensure mainline growth in a neutral or even slightly down economic environment. Past that, you will never have a guarantee. You don't have it now and you won't ever in the future. You will never convince a neutral third party that you have to have that either.

So you are trying to gauge this in light of some perfect contract you imagine. I say you should gauge it in light of how you could force that perfect contract. That will only happen if the NMB allows us to strike. Even if you believe they would allow a strike, they have shown time and again that the type of contract you seek is unavailable until the fiery end of humanity. How many years of watching pilots getting put in the naughty corner will it take for people to learn how to not go to the naughty corner. Airways 7, American 6, Continental 4, United 3. That's twenty years of experience right there.

Go back and read the NMB presentation on the ALPA website. She was giving you a road map to contract success and warning you how to stay out of the naughty corner. Negotiate, zone of reasonableness, listen to your professionals, 29 months in mediation. The railroads consolidated like the airlines are now except it was in the 1990's. Since then, no strikes multiple PEB's. Why would she take the time to point that out to us? Just interesting fun facts or a warning of what's to come?

It seems to me that most on this board think she was joking. She has no agenda to lower your expectations, she is giving advice and has the hammer to make you follow her advice. Maybe we really do need four years on ice to learn our lesson. Expensive lesson, in money, scope, and everything else. Maybe you are right and it's just our turn to touch that stove and see how hot it is.

slowplay

Well said. Much shorter and more readable than my response to vpr.

alfaromeo

Okay Carl, let's go at this another way. If a fellow 747 Captain tells you he is going to recurrent training do you expect he will pass or fail? What percentages would place on each outcome.

For me, I would put it 99+% that he is going to pass. Why?

1. Because being a 747 Captain is so easy even an idiot could pass recurrent.
2. Delta's training and checking program is just a sham and they will pass anyone
3. This is a pilot who has passed numerous processes of winnowing to get where he is today. He has a vast amount of experience, has undergone a rigorous review during his hiring at a major airline, he has survived 15, 20, 25+ years of flying and checking at a major airline, he has been highly trained both in the simulator and in line operations, he has well thought out procedures and checklists, and a highly trained first officer with the same qualifications to ensure backup and cross checking.

I choose 3. You seem to think that because I have that same confidence in the pilots and professionals conducting our negotiations that I am spitting on the choices of pilots. That is not the case. I believe only one thing: educate pilots as much as possible and then the decision they make will be the right decision.

I know that you want to bully me and others that disagree with your position into silence. You think that somehow you should control the flow of information. I refuse to get pushed around by you or the other bullies on this board.

Nice try though.

Jack Bauer

Your credibility is shot. Give it a rest already. You just cant sell this stinker as is. You have already overleveraged your opinion which routinely is out of sync with sharper, more intellectually honest minds. Take your company sales pitch elsewhere.