What exactly did we give back to end rolling thunder. It's still alive and well as far as I know. The company pushed hard to stop the award of payback days on a reserve GS but did not succeed.

Yup, rolling thunder is alive and well. Even though I've never done it, I hope we always have the option.

it used to pay much more to do it 1.5 or 2x plus payback days rather than 1x plus payback days.

I don't know if this is true. I heard rolling thunder happened because the company changed what green slips were worth to line holders, but did not change what they were worth to reserves. This caused the line holders to stop green slipping. The by-product was that almost all green slips went to the reserves which lead to rolling thunder. This won't happen now as line holders get most of the green slips due to seniority. It's hard to get more than one green slip these days as a junior pilot.

That's the truth.

I made almost 10,000 less dollars in 2012 than I did in 2011! Although a major part of that is getting pushed back to no chance of holding a line on fifi.

Sigh...What a fall... occasional lineholder on the 767 in ATL in 08/09 to dangling on the bottom of the 320 in 2013. +717! ;)

Reserve green slips have paid the same for at least the last 26 years.

That may well be the case. I dont remember the details exactly. Maybe an LOA, but it was about 5 years ago or so when rolling thunder became something to do.

I've been here 6 years... no LOAs anything like that took place during my time here.

No, what's really good is that the pilot group is much smarter than you think. Rather than get bamboozled by your type of mindless propaganda, they could apply the most basic principles of common sense and Econ 101 to realize that this was a great deal.

Let's just examine some basic facts. In rough justice numbers, Delta pilots generate about $36 billion in revenue every year and cost the company about $2 billion. So when Delta adds flying to mainline they don't expect revenue neutrality they expect you to add revenue on a 18 to 1 basis from your cost. Seriously, is this a surprise to anyone that has had even a week's worth of economics instruction. Even a second grader running a lemonade stands knows she needs to generate more revenue than costs in order to make a profit. Delta Air Lines is a capitalistic organization it is not a charity operation.

So in this deal, there were costs shifted from RJ maintenance to pilot salaries and benefits and acquisition of new aircraft. They expect that in the end it is not profit neutral, but that they generate more profits. That is the reason that people invested billions of dollars in Delta Air Lines, they want to make a profit. Right, please someone stop me if I am moving too fast here, because this all seems pretty basic. When Delta buys new aircraft they expect them to be self financing also. Why else would anyone invest billions in new aluminum if they didn't think that the aircraft would generate revenue that would pay the cost of acquisition, the cost of operations, and every other cost, and THEN GENERATE A PROFIT. Once again, these are the most basic of facts, people start capitalistic businesses to make money.

So, the idea that pilots will capture all of the revenue they generate is insane. The idea that pilots will capture all of the profits of a company is insane. The idea that management wants to generate a business plan to increase profits should pretty much fall in the DUHHHHHHH category. If along the way we can make a deal that adds a billion dollars into our pockets while allowing Delta to reduce other costs and generate more revenue, that is a no brainer.

So, we are fortunate that pilots are not easily fooled by this type of mindless propaganda. By an overwhelming majority, they saw through this type of sham argument and saw that adding mainline flying, adding vacation, adding reserve guarantee pay, increasing pay rates by 20%, increasing retirement income, and numerous other improvements just made sense. In fact, it wasn't even close.

So rather than substitute their own good judgement for mindless internet bloviation, they used their intelligence and common sense to make what really is an easy decision. More mainline flying, more pay, more benefits, works for me.

Ah, Mrs. Peel. I wonder if Mr. Steed ever got some of that?

Jinks