Originally Posted by Herkflyr (Post 1396642)

I'm with you. From the text of these resolutions (and I was not at the meeting) this seems like nothing but whining from a bunch of very set in their ways sorts.

1. The reserve resolution was to completely eliminate all RAW and all buckets, making reserve which is currently a sort of good deal for the senior guys (depending on category, time of year, etc) even more of a good deal. I'm supposed to want the negotiators to waste valuable negotiating capital on that?

2. The 767 resolution to have a domesti-only "sub-group" in the soon combined ATL 7ER category.

There is no way the company, after having spent years slowly drawing down the domestic-only 767 categories, is going to recreate a "domestic-lite" version of the same within the 7ER category. Why would they? I flew in the domestic category for several years, and have flown in the ATL 7ER category for several as well. NO WHERE at the airline are guys more set in their ways, unwilling to embrace anything new, etc., than in the ATL senior domestic categories (think ATL 767 and the senior half of the 73N). These guys love to fly domestic and are upset that they will have to fly two TOEs (and that's it) and MIGHT be rerouted into international flying during irregular ops (the odds of that are very slim by the way).

So what. The world changes. We don't fly 727s any more and we don't have flight engineers any more. In a similar vein we soon won't have any more dedicated domestic 767 categories. So what. Do your two TOEs, nod your head when the LCA is telling you all sorts of oceanic stuff, enjoy a couple of tasty European brews or South American steaks, then ram dump it all and go right back to the domestic flying that you always liked (and that I like).

There are pros and cons both from a company and pilot standpoint to keeping separate categories, and there are pros and cons to combining them. The company has elected to go with a philosophy of combining them. Accept it and move on. I had hoped that we would be flying 757s for decades to come. But Boeing has decided not to build those airplanes any more, and the 737-900 (and maybe the A321) is the future plane for many routes the 757 currently flies that I enjoy flying. While I don't like it, I have accepted it. As I get old (er) I have accepted that if I want to be a captain at DAL and fly transcons and caribbean turns, etc, then it won't be in a 757 for much longer, much as I wish it would be.

I feel that this resolution would represent a waste of time and negotiating capital.

Fire away.

Originally Posted by surfnski (Post 1396985)

20 per month from Compass
9 per month from Mesaba
??? per month from Pinnacle

These are all before off-the-street. It should pretty much fill any classes for the first few years.

500/year = 40 per month (Don't forget Delta is shrinking).

Where do you guys see room for off-the-street hiring?

Originally Posted by fisherpilot (Post 1397040)

Talk about deflating a brotha's balloon.....

Originally Posted by nwaf16dude (Post 1396919)

SEA-CPH? Does that sound like a money maker to anyone? I have a hard time seeing that route filling up a 777/787, but what do I know? I expect we will see many more head-scratcher city pairs as EK's giant WB orders keep rolling in. They have to fly them somewhere. I see lots of money losing seats being dumped into questionable markets in our future. But, at least they have hot flight attendants.

Originally Posted by iaflyer (Post 1397007)

Compass flows are limited to 25% of the Compass senority list per year, APC says they have 439 so that would mean a max of 110 per year from Compass, which is only 5.5 months worth of Compass flows a year.

Add the Compass flows (110 per year) to the Mesaba flows (9 per month, 12 months = 108) equals 218 per year of flows.

Anything else would be off the street (unless they take more flows in some manner that I don't know about).

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 1396924)

Their order book is staggering. And there are 2 more of "them" in the same small area too, plus all of the Asian and Indian hyper growth airlines. Everyone thinks they need 1000 A380's to rule the world, especially when they are dual subsidized.

One day they will choke on their fantasy "Heros of Farnsborough" order books. Until then, they are the most serious threat to the very existance of our entire industry that we've ever seen.

Originally Posted by Fly782 (Post 1397056)

FWIW Dalpa put out an email saying they were told 60 a month for the first 6 months. So 19 off street.

Originally Posted by Columbia (Post 1397072)

275 777s for Emirates by 2020. Gotta put them somewhere. Boeing will make sure of that.

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar (Post 1396683)

I thought Mesaba, no GoJets, no Mesa, was the best of the best.

At least at ASA our management was realistic. Former DAL and former Regional Airline President of the year Skip Barnette explained to me that "ASA does not want to be the best, that would cost money. We just don't want to be embarrassing."

The distressing thing, from an airline labor standpoint, was hearing management crow about the Pinnacle deal and the restructuring of costs on the regional side of our business. Pinnacle will not only put pressure on other subcontractors, but since we (our union) allow them to negotiate directly with Delta management, they put pressure on our own small jet operations. Their Next Gen jets probably have better numbers than most of our narrow body fleet on a CASM & per departure numbers while also enjoying the advantage of a more flexible platform.

Don't get me wrong, our MEC did an overall good job with C2012. I truly suspect there was a quid pro quo arrangement as we really went out of our way to keep the Delta MEC out of the Pinnacle negotiations in an effort to make outsourcing more profitable.

Tactically smart, maybe, but I remain very concerned about our strategic direction. Now we have Pinnacle sitting at the table with Delta management and there is no reason why other carriers can't pull up a chair as well if we accept that pilots are simply subcontractors.

We are Delta pilots. Not vendors.