TYG,

When you say "shrink to profitability" you have to be specific. Many guys on here will throw out the old standby "No airline has ever shrunk to profitability." To which I say - correct but in the age of code-shares and outsourcing (which you correctly mention" that old standby no longer holds true.

DAL can shrink or grow its "network" regardless of what happens to Mainline Delta. So if mainline Delta actually shrinks but the network grows are we shrinking?

From a passenger or travel department point of view - No. From an employee (Pilot) point of view - yes we are shrinking.

Scoop

 

Standing by..

 

The problem with growing from 53% to 64%, is the 64% is 64% of what?

It's an opened ended number of block hours that could grow, or could shrink. And if it shrinks then is 64% of block hours then > 53% of the block hours now- when it comes to staffing?

 

A shrinking DCI is good, a shrinking Jumbo RJ outsourcing is imperative.

Percentages are fine, but if we are indeed going to 796 mainline jets vs 450 DCI then we're going to have a ratio of around 1.77ish and the NC and DALPA would've known that during negotiations.

So why then was the block hour ratio (at it's best) set to 1.56 if the business plan already showed better?

Why not 1.75 and if you go lower it's DCI that gets cut, not us? Why was 1.56 so low?

That doesn't require any growth on our part as long as DCI shrinks to DCI 450. That's not a win. 1.75, that's a win, but to get that we're going to have to give up something aren't we?

 

FTB,

You bring up some good points, as always, but regarding your last statement I would say its all relative. I think a shrinking DCI is always a win - then again I was furloughed as DCI grew. I don't really care if DCI was already shrinking - as long as they keep shrinking I am happy. Was it perfect - Hell No.

But, and this is the really the most pertinent point, it was pretty much all over when the MEC came back with a 12-5 (or something close to that) vote. A split group. If it was 17-0 against we would have more leverage to try to improve the TA. At 12-5, game over. The MEC was split and there was really no way to unify the Pilot group. We got what we got.

As far as the TA goes - we made some gains and gave up some stuff. I don't think it was a spectacular gain, but not a flaming defeat either. I can live with it for two years while hopefully the other legacies get something other than BK contracts.


Scoop

 

It won't be two years. Negotiations will be starting shortly to handle the FT/DT changes, but you can bet the company will use the opportunity to tweak the rules even more in their favor.

There are a fair number of guys chomping at the bit to relax what protections in the CBA we have left for the ability to fly even more. THAT will drive any hiring way out into 2015 and beyond.

A lot of the rah rah guys were defending the new FT/DT rules by saying "well, that's all well and good, but our CBA protects us against that", but when you press them they'll throw in the qualifier "we won't give that up unless they come to us with something REALLY good", meaning the decision to give it up has already been made, now it's just a matter of dickering on the price.

Put the term "really good" in the context of who says it. Really good might mean trading augmentation rules to match FARs for another %5 pay raise. That's a big win for guys who are at the top of the game, BUT the loss of staffing would devistate %80 of the rest of the group.

The FT/DT rules that we have in our contract are critical to our current staffing model (as the pilots see it). If that gets changed, hoo boy...

There is a really nasty confluence of events in flux, and the increase in the ALV and reserve utilization was only the first step. HND/NRT, FT/DT and the continuing downgauging of the airline is going hit, and hit hard if it goes a certain way, and WE laid the groundwork.

Be prepared for more message massaging....we went from 1,000 new hires, to 450, to 200, to being overstaffed, all in the course of the TA cycle. The same with the RMA. Consider where we are now, and what happens if staffing rules are relaxed even more.

Sure, we got a little more money, but was the money we got WORTH what we gave in return? If we kept our staffing rules the same, fought to keep the number of large RJs (70+ seats) at the previous level, and reduced the 50 seaters I'd say the trinkets we got were "meh, it's a gain, fine", but what we gave up put us at par at best, which is ridiculous considering our negotiating position.

As ACL says, the TA is now the working agreement, and that's in the past. But I really hope that people learned the game, and apply the lessons to the future.

Nu

 

Don't even get me started on the ~4+ Billion dollar transactions with the import/export facilities in Brazil and Canada. No wonder Emirates is complaining about that as well as our 3 billion lower debt guidance and stuff!




Wait, what?

 

Because DAL signs iron clad contracts with DCI's that they can't get out of no matter what. That's why our flexibile contract needs to have room in it for such occasions; to allow the company to preserve outsourced flying under contract. Because a contract is a contract, unless its a Contract, amirite?

 

I agree with you. There's nothing we can really do about the TA now. We tried hard, but there were too many Bill Lumbergs out there. I only want to show people the ways it hurt us so we don't repeat these mistakes in the future.

 

blah blah blah.. no proof, all conjecture based on hope.

It's getting old.