Keyboard Kommando Karl,

Let's go back...again....and see if you can stay on topic.

The topic was costing. Your post said I lied in my response to a poster on costing...show me where I lied by post number, please.

Please, once again, show me where I talked about "cost neutral" in a lying manner. Post number, please.

Proof, please.

Here's a hint...you're wrong *yet again*

and you said it's always personal....funny stuff.

 

I'm a bad example for you to use, because I have almost no DC and will not til around 2015 if memory serves. We did that at NWA so junior guys would have their retirements boosted by money from senior guys that I theoretically don't need as much since I have a frozen DB retirement.

But my point about this TA being cost neutral is that if you're going to crow about these pay raises (which are really little more than a COLA), you MUST look in the rest of the contract where that is being "funded." Loss of profit sharing, concessions on work rules to name a few. That's only fair to point out. Especially in the light that this TA is indeed cost neutral to Delta. We waited 10+ years and gave DALPA what they pleaded for...the opportunity to show us what they could do in the first Section 6 in a decade. DALPA was further bolstered by negotiating during a time of our airline's record profits. What did they bring us? A cost neutral TA.

That's a fact. Everyone must obviously use their own judgment on how to vote, but you're voting on a cost neutral TA.

Carl

 

C2K Strike Committee Guy: "We'll need a 30% raise and no jets over 50 seats at DCI"

Delta: "What are you willing to give up for it?"

Strike Committee Guy: "Logbook"

 

Now that right there is funny! I don't care who you are.

Coming from Alfa...

 

You have way more DC now than you would have had pre-merger due to the 3% increases (1% each in 2010/11/12) and you're also getting residual contributions from targeting spillover due to those increased contributions. Targeting sunsets in December 2013. You'll be getting 15% (if the TA passes) like the rest of us at that point. Did you mention the DB funding that the senior guys are getting that the targeted guys aren't sharing in? Were you part of Tanksley, Carl?

But you're right, you are a poor example.

 

Look, I too would love to be paid much more, I really think that each day of training should be 5:15 (since we are on duty it should be an avg duty day), vacation should be at least 5!5 (a days worth of work), etc but to say that this raise is cola to me is mind boggling. It is a three year deal and it would be a ~19% raise. That is more than cola. What if we did the deal of 6.5 Jan 1, 2013, 6.5% 2014 and 6.5% 2015. It would be about the same % but is that just cola? Guys are fixated on the last two years and quite frankly, I would much rather have a larger bump now than equal over the term.
One more question: lets say that we vote this TA down and the company does in fact decide to do the overhauls on the 50 seaters. Then the company comes back to us with the same deal. It is no longer cost neutral to the company, is it now a good deal since it cost the company money?

Believe me, I really feel that we are being slighted by the fact that we get to realize the benefit of the re-fleeting of the regionals and yet the company is not throwing in a few more $$ to our group for successfully completing a merger without any glitches from flight ops side (as it relates to passengers) and taking major setbacks to get the company out of bk and become profitable again. It really does not sit well that we aren't given at least a little token amount since every other group is. Why should our gains have to only come from the benefits of getting out of 50 seat rj leases. What are the other labor and office groups giving up in order to get their raises? All I am saying is that I don't necessarily think that just because it is cost neutral, that is the reason to vote it down.

Either the TA meets your minimum threshold or it doesn't (as it pertains to wages and work rules).

This is just my thoughts and I am no where near coming to a decision as to how I will vote. I do know that I will for sure vote no, no matter what, if the company/union does not inform us that pilots are not coming with the 717's (sorry for the numerous use of negatives in the sentence for all you grammerians).

 

I know you don't see this as a lie. You see this as you being so clever that none of us line dolts could possibly see through it. Well DoubleTrouble and many others see through it. He's was polite enough to refer to it as "nice media school reply", but it's really just a plain old lie. His question and point wasn't whether "detailed" costing had been given to the reps, but rather has "real" costing been given to the reps. When you answer that very plain question by claiming that the reps either "misheard" or "misread" when you've purposely changed the subject of his question, that's a lie. It's not cleverness, it's not spin, it's lying.

And as the LEC reps have warned us, the MEC (and its unelected bureaucrats like you) are too invested in this TA to describe it objectively. You just keep proving how right they are. Now our entire group has the danger of being sold during road shows by people who are too invested in this to describe it objectively.

We've got a tough road ahead.

Carl

 

I know. I went crazy on Bar over those numbers. Basically, I had heard enough to believe the 717s were coming. The thought that for no apparent reason they'd be tied to letting DCI have more CRJ-900XXXrs was asinine. I could see the 3:1 ratio kicking in but nothing more. There's no way anybody would be stupid enough to fall for a "pay me for what I have to give you anyways." That's stupid.

And it still is.

But somehow it became a reality, and that sucks.

So Bar was right, I was wrong. Now what else was Bar right about? CASMs?

 

All but Comair. We went to C/I about 6 years ago, so while CHQ and 9E are plowing around at .82, Comair is at .74 to save on Delta's gas bill.

I'm sure we'll get credit for that in the next contract.

Bottom line, Delta cares less about the gas.

 

Okay, go back and look at the chart. The segment for fuel CASM for the Skywest CRJ-900 is 0.0. So either Skywest has invented a plane that runs on air, or those are part of the pass through costs that aren't shown on that graph. The chart says that indirect costs don't include aircraft ownership fuel + oil and engine maintenance. So sure, if Skywest gets their airplanes for free and they run on air and the engines fix themselves then sure you have an accurate CASM. Well except for much of the labor costs are pass through costs also. So they get their airplanes for free, they run on air, the engines fix themselves, and their employees all work for nothing, then yes that is an accurate CASM. Well, there's more, do I need to go on or is that enough?

You can do your own research but it has to be based on fact. Instead, you guys latch onto anything you can find on the internet and say you have proven your point.

I am not the one fudging the numbers, but hey if you think lying is making your point then keep on. Here is a point to consider. If management is fudging their numbers wouldn't they want to show how low the costs of the 76 seaters are? Why would they lie on the high side?

So I admire your dedication to obfuscation and misleading everyone to try to make your point, but in the end truth always wins.

So for everyone else, here is the truth. There is only one mainline airplane that is close to the higher CASM's of RJ's and that is the DC-9. That should not be a surprise to anyone. The 737-800 is massively cheap to operate on a seat mile basis and beats all RJ's by huge proportions.

There is another metric and that is called trip costs. If you took an RJ-76 off side by side with a 737-800 or an MD-88 and then landed side by side an hour later, the total cost to operate that flight would be more on a mainline aircraft than on the RJ. Bigger jets burn more fuel, cost more to own, pilots make more money, flight attendants make more money, and on and on. The bigger airplanes have many more seats, so they are cheaper to operate on a seat mile basis.

So on a segment basis, they try to analyze whether the revenue gained with a larger jet justifies the higher trip costs associated with a larger jet. Unlike a carrier like Southwest or JetBlue, Delta covers a much wider array of markets to smaller cities and to smaller hubs. That is why Delta has to have different sized aircraft and can't operate with one fleet type like Southwest.

When Delta merged with Northwest, they both had fleets for medium sized airlines and served a much more fragmented industry. Now Delta is a mega carrier and the industry is much less fragmented. It makes much more sense for them to upgauge their fleet. The primary focus of this upgauging is to add more mainline aircraft. In fact the fleet plan envisions a net gain of around 100 aircraft at mainline while regionals lose 150.

They can't execute that plan unless they are able to take RJ-50's out of the market. They have signed agreements to operate those aircraft and they have ownership costs that they cannot unilaterally break. Yes, management made bad decisions back when they were independent carriers, but if they want to fix those issues and add mainline flying why should we say no?

So they need an incentive (bribe) to the DCI carriers and to the debt holders to break these agreements. The DCI carriers will cooperate if they can get some other type of flying (76 seaters) and the debt holders will cooperate if they can get additional jet orders since they view this as a jobs program for their country.

So in order to help the company execute their plan to massively increase mainline flying, we entered into this negotiation. Part of that negotiation was to transfer a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on third parties into our pockets. So if you are scared of change and want to live in the little world you inhabit now, then please crawl back in your shell. If you see the entrepreneurial nature of this deal and what it will mean to Delta pilot careers then jump on board. As part of this negotiation we told management that we were going to hold them to their business plan. That is the block hour ratio and the 50 seat reduction tables. It is extremely powerful protection for Delta pilots and it is ground breaking. It's too bad some try to mislead others by publishing spreadsheets with no logic or reasoning. I could show you in a spreadsheet how a 600 seat A-380 could replace 12 RJ-50's, but does that make one bit of sense to anyone? Some try to sell you the notion that Delta will have 300 180+ seat aircraft and get rid of almost every jet smaller than that. Does that make sense to you?

So, Dear Reader, I will let you judge the logic and reasoning of what I wrote and then the logic and reasoning that a SkyWest RJ-76 burns no fuel, came free from the manufacturer, and the engines fix themselves.