Carl you ARE the masterdebater:)

Agreed. The previous system was broken and needed to be fixed. I have always been in favor of fair and adequate protections for displaced recovery for any reason. The previous rules let the company extend the release of the pairing by I think up to 4 hours the last day with no penalty. That was bogus. It could be broken up into shorter trips and you had to eat in base hotels, etc. Again, bogus. Those things needed to be fixed. I'd even say a "no redeye" provision (if bid for and awarded originally for the pairing in question) could be rolled into that as well.

But I do not see an inalienable entitlement to be completely released with full pay, no obligation, and then be able to double dip like that. That is a disproportionate windfall for a select few. For most who will only come across it here and there, that's one thing. But for the buddy bidders who will basically get the year off with full pay and double dipping at will privlidges, all for being poor, abused "victim"s of the very thing they bid for, that is rediculous. We are all funding that. If there is money available for that, then there is money available to fix our vacation system, which right now sucks, hard. Reserves get 3 days extra off. 3. So much for a week of vacation? And yet we still have guys trapped in the mentality of 15-20 years ago thinking touch drop should come back so you can back up two 12 days and get a month and a half off for every "week". Apparently, some think seniority not only means more vacation weeks and the choice of vacation weeks, but it should also mean double or triple the vacation days per week. Well it doesn't.

This version of OE recovery release is almost as bad as that. It becomes very expensive for a select few, yet the whole group has to pay for it so a tiny seniority bubble towards the upper middle of the list gets to reap the windfall. I know you said you got in on it once. Great for you. But when things really pick up, there will be very few pairings with LCA's available for the fluke bottom lineholder. The word isn't even fully out on this potential scam yet. I know a guy in that bubble that just now figured it out and turned it into over half a months pay for one leg. We should not celebrate isolated windfalls like that, because we all pay for it while a few get a net gain far, far, far in excess of their displaced martyrdom, self infliction notwithstanding.


OK here we go. So come contract time, we're getting everything! A cadillac per month, touch drop scams where every "week" is a full month, and return of the 6th week! Full OE release scams and everything! Heck, let's bring back the FE! Let's embrace a regulation era negotiating stratedgy and get everything, and label anyone who thinks that's a poor stratedgy as anti pilot group. Please.

While I am against this type of little bubble windfall technicalites in a contract, I happen to think we need significant gains throughout our contract. We need:

Significantly better scope at all levels, RJ's, AS, JV's, etc.
Significantly better vacation, with a fair value "per week" for all pilots at all seniorities.
Higher pay.
Higher per diem.
Better work rules.
Better disability (the company should not be able to "monetize" the pilot created and funded DPMA when they should be paying 2/3 disability for all disabled pilots, period).
And other improvements all across our contract.

So I'm absolutely not a pushover or someone that thinks every gain has to be offset by a loss. We are due significant net gains, all across the spectrum. That's why I disagree with little bubble windfalls like this. Being able to buddy bid with an LCA and get your whole month dropped while the rest of us are living under a contract that still urgently needs to be fixed at other levels for all pilots (including those in the windfall bubble by the way...although I guess not much beats month after month off with full pay I guess) if we have the leverage for that, that leverage needs to be applied towards other far more urgent areas of the contract.

Hoping for a lawyer-ball technicality to let you double or triple dip here and there while we have so many other areas that need to be fixed is a poor negotiating stratedgy.

If the company wanted the early retirement package because we are overstaffed, why did they also want the productivity increases that required fewer pilots?

My guess is that they wanted it to smooth out training bumps down the line.

Wait!

I thought we were told the early retirement package was something that was good for us anyway. Now, it comes out that it was something that the company wanted? I think someone pointed that out last year. :rolleyes:

Boy. We sure did fall for it (again). :D

I don't have a problem with 5 reps voicing dissenting opinions. I welcome healthy debate and I'm glad they stood their ground for what they thought was right. I am not advocating a system of 'yes men' that all fall in line - far from it.

As to the second point. Yes, the PWA did increase costs by hundreds of millions of dollars. Pilot costs that is, which btw are the only ones I care about increasing. If they can offset those costs elsewhere then fantastic! That's the whole point we keep knocking around here. If Ed says that overall costs remained neutral, then fine. That doesn't bother me. Why does it bother you?

When you say: "The MEC administration instead put out disinformation stating that the TA would increase costs by hundreds of millions of dollars. Completely untrue of course." you are mis-representing the facts. I can only assume it is to try to sway those on the fence about what really happened.

To put it more directly, so we're talking apples to apples; did C2012 increase pilot costs by hundreds of millions of dollars Carl?

Once you answer that, then please explain why you care how Ed balances his books or relates them to his investors.


I'll say it again. I think it's great if the company is able to offset pilot costs elsewhere in the business. We should all want that. It makes it more likely that we'll continue to achieve gains going forward. If they can't support our increased costs then it is not sustainable. Sure we could have gotten more - maybe?!? Or could we? That's why our democratically elected reps voted on it. Once they ratified it, we got to vote on it. Did we all want more? Sure. Did we approve it as a majority? Yep. How much more bottom up does it get?

Yes, I voted yes. And yes, I'm happy with the contract - so far. Many things still have to play out, and we'll only know how successful we were with the benefit of hindsight.

None of the above should be confused with the fact that I think we're worth a lot more and want us to keep moving in that direction. The company has been printing money for the past 3 years, and it looks like they will continue to do so. I'd love for us to have some of that going forward, and think we can achieve that if we all get on the same page, and stop doing what you're doing (which is spreading mis-information.) You clearly disagree with the way things have been going, and that's fine.


When you purposely shift the focus of the discussion from 1) Did pilot costs increase? to 2) Did costs increase overall? you are clouding what is really a very simple issue.

If the costs of the pilot contract increased then we should be fine with Delta being able to offset that elsewhere in the business. Whether you like it or not, the pie is only so big. I'd rather see us getting some pie rather than spending that chunk on RJ mx, fuel, etc.

Now if your point is we should have stuck it to management and made them feel the pain, to the point where they can't use Wall-Street friendly terms like "cost-neutral," then you're arguing a different point. Calling the MEC (of whom a majority ratified the TA) and/or Admin liars is just not true, and it is counterproductive to moving forward and improving our situation.


1. You're right. I apologize. I firmly believe we can disagree on methods while still aiming for the same prize.

2. I have no "cause" other than to illuminate what's really happening so we're not hampered by mis-information going forward.

3. As for staying on topic, I'll ask it one final time in this post. If you won't/don't answer this, we'll know who is straying off topic:

-Did C2012 increase the cost of the pilot contract by hundreds of millions?

-If yes, then why does it matter what Ed/Richard say to their investors?

Two simple answers. Thanks Carl.

Someone from here should attend that Karrass negotiating seminar that I see in the onboard magazines. Maybe we could then further understand how it is that we're getting what we (don't) want.

Every time I see that ad I think of Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite:

"Vote for me and all your wildest dreams will come true" :D

Almost none of what you write above is responsive to my comments. Why are you trying so hard to sound convincing about topics that aren't being discussed?


No, it did not. Our executive leadership team said exactly that. They did NOT say they could find ways to offset increased costs in other areas of the airline. They said THE TA (if voted in by the pilots) would be cost neutral to Delta. In fact, they said the savings produced by the TA would help FUND other projects.

The answer is of course no. Not just my opinion from the evidence and what we've seen since passage, but the statements of our executive leadership team.

Carl

They can spin it any way they want (so can anyone.) Is it possible that those statements INCLUDE the efficiencies gained by parking hundreds of 50 seaters, getting SWA to nearly pay us to take their 717's, etc? That WAS the deal. They can say without lying that the pilot contract was cost neutral because it allowed them to pursue these things that DO save Delta a ton of money.

Not sure why this is so hard to understand.

Carl,

Maybe I really am missing something here. Explain how you think this should have gone down if you were calling the shots. I just don't get where you're coming up with this stuff?

The contract puts hundreds of million back into the pilot contract and begins to shift flying back to mainline. They could call it concessionary if they wanted to and I wouldn't care.

I don't think we get to have both. But we already knew we were going to lose 300 pilots in one way via the contract and were left hoping more jets (short term more jets not long term) and other gains somewhere in the "pwa cloud" would even it all out.

I hope we get to have both, but I don't think we will because it's not looking like it right now.

First, between August and now you can see the 88 inching down in crews per jet and more are coming but they don't want to expand the category. For some reason even the 737 shrunk from August to this year even with more jets coming.

We do have slightly more pilots in the category lists than we did in August but less than this time last year. I guess that's just a function of MIL leave and like returning pilots. But once we get all of the 90s (excluding 717s) we'll have fewer pilots per jet than we did in August. I guess that's productivity. Which is why I kind of question 14 pilots per 717, we don't run that on the 88 and don't intend to. So I see 14 pilots initially for coverage as new jets arrive but I couldn't see that being a long term thing when compared to the other fleets. That's just me though.

Second, going back to that 2Q investor call:

Now I know they are not talking about pilots here but you cannot deny they're saying they are reducing capacity and if they're going to reduce capacity they want to reduce headcount and limit the backfill. Why should we be exempt from that equation?

To me this is why I think we're going to shrink the pilot group:

• A reduction in capacity necessitates a reduction in headcount elsewhere and that's called improving productivity. Same language EB used in the same earnings call.
• March crew planning newsletter talked extensively about displacing ATL 767, DTW DC9 and ATL DC9. That totals 414 pilots.
• We are opening DTW 73N for about 40 pilots and ATL 717 for 200 pilots, so 240 pilots total. Leaving the 174 surplus that we need to hope are taken up by the ER and at least the 73N.
• They also mentioned reducing A320 Bs but are happy with the A320 A numbers. It's only a 16 pilot difference.
• More 90s are coming but they plan to shrink the 88 category.

I think I understand the show. Really smart people live in the apartment on the right and she lives in the one on the left. I have more questions to follow.

If that's okay?