Scoop

Dude,
I am going out on a limb here, but I think its safe to assume that the pilots commenting about size 18+ Flight Attendants are not the fat pilots we all see on a daily basis.

Scoop

Burn Notice

Scoop,
No, I'm pretty freakin' huge! In fact, when I do the control check I have to suck in my own gut.

Fly4hire

You have. I was referring to several others but you knew that

The ALPA boards have been policed to irrelevance and driven many here. I think the participation is down there because they feel the MEC is not listening and opposing points of view are shut down or ignored.


See above. So now contrarian opinion is disunity? Agree with us or you promote disunity. You confuse unanimity and unity. Happens a lot at ALPA.

I and others have presented substantive discussion to only have them condescendingly dismissed with the MEC talking points while avoiding addressing the specific questions raised.The facts as you present them are accurate but, are a snapshot that only looks at one slice of the problem while avoiding or ignoring the other questions asked.


I do acknowledge the work done but that does not mean you get to frame the discussion, questions and answers soley on your terms. Again the popularity of APC and the waning of the web boards IMO.I am actually very happy with the MEC sans an honest and open public discussion over Scope,


Wow. Must be hitting a sore spot if you want us back on the web boards after myself and many others feel there has been a deliberate effort to get us off and minimize the boards impact. To answer your question why not do the same here?

The high road comment was partially TIC - stop with the condescension (cluck cluck) and start answering some questions other than with talking points and you'll stop providing so much low hanging fruit for witty metaphors.

Want to put this whole issue to bed for good?

Hold a few unscripted, un-timed town hall style Q and A roadshows with LM, the negotiators, and appropriate principals. Tape same and make available for viewing on the MEC web site. Let us know what the MEC really thinks and let us ask all the questions we want, and they all get answered.

The current pointed avoidance of the topic, canned answers that do not address the some of the hard questions, and the torpedoing of all resolutions addressing the topic lead many to be suspicious of the direction we are taking. If we are misreading the MEC on Scope talk to us and listen to the concerns and address them.

Reroute

It's not really accurate to state that the non-qualified benefits, which were unfunded and uninsured, were "given up". The non qualified plans were not part of the Delta Pilot Retirement Plan, it was a contractual benefit that was unfunded and uninsured. Nevertheless, it paid out 60 cents on the dollar, a figure which was consistent with the claim sale pay out.


ADC 07-09 states the following:

"non-qualified benefits were not part of the Delta Pilots Retirement Plan, nor were they insured by the PBGC in any way. While qualified benefits were paid from the master trust (DPRP assets are now trusteed by the PBGC), non-qualified benefits were contractual benefits paid from Delta’s treasury through the Bridge Plan and Supplemental Annuity Plan (neither of which held any actual assets). Both of these plans were terminated immediately after termination of the qualified plan on September 2, 2006.

The Notes Allocation Model, dealing in part with the contractual, uninsured nature and higher risk associated with non-qualified benefits, provides a recovery ratio of .60 to those benefits. This is consistent with the Claim sale recovery ratio of 60 cents on the dollar achieved for various contractual concessions not related to retirement."

flyover

Is anybody else sick of this thread that has well over 1,000 pages now. Can we deleted it already? This is insane! Can we please start a category or forum just for the New Delta Guys so I don't have to read posts from the same 12 pilots who are always on here with no new news or information?

Maybe this is the big annoucement, "Airline Pilot Central Forums gives Delta Pilots it's own forum page!"

forgot to bid

ASA furloughing 56 more pilots and judge approves Republic buying Frontier.

But my understanding on RAH was that they were only going to buy 49% now because RAH couldn't get their pilots to give up the contractual merging of seniorities. Wow, Teamsters standing firm on scope.

Also, thought this was interesting from the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1247...googlenews_wsj

Bill Warlick, an airline bond analyst for Fitch Ratings... recently cut the corporate credit ratings of Delta and United, pushing them deeper into speculative territory. While Delta has a relatively strong $5.3 billion in unrestricted cash, the company faces scheduled debt maturities of roughly the same amount before the end of 2011. Delta's ability to maintain its liquidity at current levels depends on improved credit-market openness and industry stabilization in 2010, Mr. Warlick said.

Delta declined to comment.

United, with about $2.5 billion in cash, must meet more than $650 million of debt and lease payments later this year and more than $1 billion in 2010. With this "unsustainable" capital structure, United may have trouble raising a large amount of fresh capital in the near term, Mr. Warlick said. United declined to comment.

Some carriers may have no choice but to seek protection from creditors this winter, when cash flow typically dries up. United, American and US Airways are the most vulnerable among large carriers, according to credit-rating agencies and Wall Street investment houses.

While he doesn't rule out one or more carriers filing as soon as this fall, Philip Baggaley, a debt analyst for Standard & Poor's Corp., says that "the more likely scenario is that they will manage to scrape by again." He adds, though, that "there's not a lot of room for error."

Like United, AMR and US Airways declined to comment.

US Airways has been through Chapter 11 twice since the 2001 terrorist attacks, and United and Delta, as well as Delta's recent acquisition, Northwest Airlines, have been through it once.

Some analysts wonder what good further restructurings would do.

"We might lose one along the way," said Bill Swelbar, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's International Center for Air Transportation. "It's hard to restructure zero demand."

FlyinPiker

Well our most accurate poster tossed this on Flightinfo's Delta/Virgin Blue Thread either last night or this morning.

"It is going to be an interesting week down here in VA ave. The TV trucks are already setting up "

forgot to bid

Calling Mr. Bar... stock analysis please, do you see anything interesting in the airline sector? Or recycled aluminum sector?

JobHopper

I’ve been debating whether to throw another log onto the scope fire, but this has been bothering me for some time.

Most of the flying I do off reserve on the -9 are Pinnacle/Compass/Mesaba rescue missions (Pinnacle mostly; they seem to have the most problems). An RJ trip cancels for whatever reason and NWA constitutes a mainline trip to move the passengers.

I’m certain most company pilots are in the dark about this, including the RJ crews. Their trip cancels, they’re sent to the hotel, and we are called out.

I have a lot of issues with this practice. I’ve called ALPA, talked to the CP, all to no avail. It’s just an accepted way of doing business here on the DAL-N side.

If Pinnacle, et. al., flew a mainline leg, ALPA would be screaming scope violation at the top of their lungs. So, am I violating DAL scope by flying a Pinnacle leg? I don’t think so. I’m flying a duly constituted mainline trip with a mainline flight number. Either way, DALPA doesn’t care.

But, am I violating Pinnacle/Compass/Mesaba scope? I haven’t read their scope clauses, so I don’t officially know. I do know this, however: we haven’t heard a peep from their (and, in the case of CPZ, our own) MECs about this.

Question: Does DAL-S fly Comair or ASA flights? I’d like to think not, but hold that thought.

There are two big issues with this practice:

It hurts mainline jobs. The company can continue allowing this flying to remain at the regionals, knowing that we will ride to the rescue if they drop the ball.

It hurts regional jobs. Their companies can continue to push the limits with their own pilots on work rules, hiring, etc., knowing that lack of performance will be compensated for.

The insidious nature of this job erosion is what worries me, and ALPA seems to have turned a blind eye to it. The only way to combat this is to ask your LEC reps *** and at least let them know you know. Those of you with friends at the regionals should tell them to do the same with their MECs. All our careers suffer under this practice.

Those of you who think “That’ll never happen here” or “No way!”, take heed: this is a well established policy at DAL-N. We are bringing that corporate philosophy and precedent with us into SOC. What’s that? Did Comair just cancel? Who you gonna call when they call you?

There’s an old saying to be careful if the camel gets its nose under the tent. Pretty soon, the whole camel is inside. The nose is there; can we shove it back out?

forgot to bid

Sorry, I heard about this during a marketing thing in a previous life and hadn't heard it since.

What are you replacing mostly? 50 seaters or 76 seaters? I remember someone else posting a few months back that there were doing this on the DC9 as well for an Ejet.