I am sorry you have such a low opinion of your fellow pilots. I must hang out with a different crowd. The pilots I know took a long hard look at the reality of the RLA and the industry as a whole. They looked at the options available and the success of other airlines who exercised those options. They looked at history for RLA contracts and how the NMB has handled contracts and their timeline which they made available to all pilots when the head met with the MEC. They made intelligent and informed decisions be that a yes or no vote.
In the end I am always results oriented. This contract broke a over decade long log jam in the industry. Its a huge step forward after 12 long years going in the wrong direction. Its duration was something no other airline has come close to matching and will have us starting work on the next contract in 18 months.
I spend a lot of time with young pilots looking to get into this industry. Delta is the first choice of virtually every single one that I talk with. It was not that long ago that Delta was almost down to a cash level that would have required liquidation. Our contract was in court under a 1113 motion with every aspect of it being decimated. Today we are the envy of the industry and the place everyone except many forum posters here wants to be. We have a contract that gives Delta the highest total block hour costs in the passenger industry in the US. No one has matched it and those who have come close signed much longer contracts. Those that went down the path this forum advocates never produced any results let alone what we have achieved since 2005.
Some on this forum need to pick better friends that they can view as smart and intelligent. My friends tend to be much smarter then me and I recognize that. This forum seems to populated by a group that puts themselves on a pedestal and looks down on all their fellow pilots. I would love to talk to some of you in 25 years and see what wisdom age brings you. I think the results would be surprising.

I absolutely agree with both of you guys.
I was painting with a very broad brush. There are 10,000 individual stories in this pilot group.

I think we've hit on 2 of the biggest categories of yes voters though.
There are the comfortable guys who live modestly and are content with what they have and there are the over-extended guys whose lives would be destroyed by a 14 day strike.

ALPA owns those guys. They will vote yes to whatever is put in front of them. We need to somehow convince them that they deserve more and they can get more.

Let me get this straight, if you voted for the contract you were either in financial jeopardy, or ignorant. I'm sorry, the only ignorance I see is in posts like the ones above.

What posts are you reading? Nobody said ignorant.
We said content with our current pay. You inferred ignorance.

Sailing;

First, let me say I enjoy your input and appreciate your (measured) passion. The truth is, I don't think we are that far apart on our perspectives, but the angular difference between our viewpoints (or how we interpret things) is just enough to fuel whatever debate exists.

I for one have a generally very high opinion of my fellow DAL pilot. What I posted earlier, IS however, what I have been told (by one individual) and heard from several. I interpret those interactions on face value. The pilots with whom I fly are great guys, the workplace is a great workplace, the trips are enjoyable, we are in good, quality, enjoyable company. However, we are married to the company, we are not portable, we have to work here - not elsewhere for our livelihoods. Is that what you refer to as "the industry as a whole" and "other options?" How about those survey results. How about the AF/KLM comparison? Do you expect us all to be mushrooms in a closet - only watered by the ALPA spin machine?

I could be wrong, but I think 12 years of bad direction might be a slight overexaggeration. You (I'm sure) have a specific event pegged as the beginning of the downward slide which was probably 12 years ago. You are in good company with your results orientation. How you view results might be a little different than how others view results. As I have said before (and I still believe) this contract benchmarked bankruptcy pay (plus cola) as the new normal. There are improvements in the contract and concessions in the contract. DALPA says the contract cost the company $1B...I'm not seeing it. The productivity enhancements (concessions) alone staved off hiring...Certainly saving the company $1B. Stock buyback plans and debt paydown rates further back this up. Our new debt goal is $7B...Did ALPA EF&A project that figure for us their constituents when they costed this whole thing out?

Delta is the first choice because it IS populated by good guys/gals. It is a great workplace environment. The pedestal of which you speak is virtually non-existent, but your painting of all decisions being made rationally and from the same viewpoint is a mischaracterization too...IMO.

Most have known for quite some time. He's "just glad to be here."

Sailing,

Please correct my memory if it's wrong, but I recall some posts prior to this contract being ratified where you indicated your personal minimums in terms of pay increases were substantial, and when the 4, 8.5,3,3 was announced you were disappointed (maybe even very disappointed?).

Again, this is my recollection, but you intimated that since the T/A was well blow your minimums you were a "no" vote.

Now it seems you think our contract was a big win....

Which is it, and why?

Your numbers just don't make sense. This contract cost us a very small number of jobs in total. Probably somewhere in the 100 to 300 pilot range. The company never planned more 150 pilot to be hired this winter. They had a higher then expected number of mil leaves return and then RA decided that a first quarter profit took priority over everything else and all departments were ordered to save every penny possible in the first quarter. Flight ops wanted to hire they were denied. To state that it saves the company 1 billion dollars is crazy. Total pilot costs per year are around 2.2 billion dollars. The fact we did not hire this winter does not change the total number of pilots that will be required over time. Its simply means they will have to hire more next year. Pilot hiring is going to be driven by one thing and that is block hours. The last 5 years we have seen a consistent reduction of 2 percent a year in block hours. This year we will actually be up slightly at the end of the year and next year we will have a significant increase in mainline block hours. The Delta system will not have a increase but the contract forces hours from DCI to the mainline. That is huge regardless of how you want to spin it. There is post after post on this forum about how short we will be on pilots this summer. If the contract gave up the massive number of pilots stated here then there is no way we would be short pilots this summer with the block hour plan essentially the same as last summer. In fact we would have to have a massive surplus if the rumored job loss were even remotely true and there would have been huge displacement bids with hundreds of lost Captains jobs. The reality is that we have added 200 plus net Captains jobs since the contract was signed with essentially flat block hours. How do you explain that? Why has crew resources not read the new contract and realized they should have displaced 500 Captains?
Yes there were items that increased productivity in the contract. There were also items ignored on the forum that offset that with decreases in productivity. The one absolute fact is we are the least productive pilots at any major airline in the US. You can verify that from many sources on the internet. Part of our lack of productivity is managements fault because of their chosen fleet plan however much if it is contractual. The NMB made it very clear how they would view our negotiations. They made it very clear that any release would be based on the reasonableness of our proposals and they would be bench marked against the industry standard.
There is simply no question in my mind that had we turned down this contract we would still be working under the old contract at the amendable date of the new contract. That is assuming things went relatively well with the NMB. If not then even longer.
In the end I voted yes on this contract for one reason and one reason only. After reading everything I could, talking directly to my reps and negotiators, reading the NMB powerpoint and looking at the results or actually complete lack of results at other unions I came to the conclusion it put the most money in my pocket over time. Nothing I have seen since the contract was signed has changed that.

Like that won't happen.

There is doubt in my mind that this would have been the case, but there is no way for me to back it up since the contract passed.