did anyone else see some A321 lines painted over? :(

From Scoop above:

"First I will defend DALPA and say that we tired that once and were taken to court - we lost. We can not unilaterally change the status-quo or something like that. The company went after 39, or was it 49 pilots personally via the court system."


Scoop, it was indeed 49, who were the entire MEC (about 32 members at the time) plus an additional 17 of us line pilots, who had voiced our displeasure with those flying overtime while we were 18 months into C2K contract negotiations. It was our VP of Flt. Ops. Dave Bushy who targeted the line pilots specifically, based on stuff put on the DALPA boards, emails directly to Bushy and notes left in mailboxes of those who were flying max GS.

The math is pretty simple; if you have 10,000 pilots who fly on average 87-92 hours a month, with the ability to fly to FAR max, that is the same amount of flying time covered as 12,000 pilots all flying a 75 average. So yeah, PBS and no caps have cost at least 2,000 jobs. (10,000 x 90 = 12,000 x 75)

We have given up about 20% of our staffing, by going to PBS with no caps. Remember the battle cry of years past; "More Money, More Time Off"?


The only way you get both, is to fly LESS, not fly more. If we went to a hard cap or 75 tomorrow, the company would have to increase every category (starting with the 747 and 777) by 20%. In a math perfect world, the top 20% of every category below the 747/777 would upgrade to a higher paying seat, and get more days off, and the company would have to hire 2,000 more pilots.

But somehow that battle cry has become twisted to;

More Money! I want to fly 100+ a month!

And THAT is why we are not hiring.

FTB figured it out; bid reserve and use rolling thunder. If I wasn't a commuter, I'd be doing it too!

With FLL building a longer runway and catering to international flights to bring in more people for the cruise ships, does anyone think we might swoop in and build it up to compete with AA in Miami? FLL is more accessible for most of that area than MIA is and would be a golden opportunity. Not just for the cruis nships but also for South America. Residents would flock to FLL just to avoid MIA, but our terminal stinks, as does Spirits. Not sure about JetBlue's but seems to me most of the airport interior is a little rundown.

+1 ....... :(

Most pilots I fly with (88 capts) love the fact that we have the ability to fly as much as we want. They say things like "we are so lucky to work for a company that doesn't cap our flying."
I would guess this is the view of the majority at Delta and it needs to change.

+1 Hear the same type of thing all the time followed by their lack of movement in category as well as hiring. I can't help but eye roll with these guys.

The company actually counts on us green slipping to get through the summer months. Again, I have no issue with guys who green slip or roll thunder, I just don't want to hear these guys complain about dal not hiring.

I sometimes feel as though I'm in the minority of guys who are happy with guarantee and not working on days off.

I'm not taking sides in this argument but I will add some basic economic facts. The DL pilots share of the financial pie is a finite amount. How the pilots divide our portion is up to us, we can add 20% more pilots but then we have 2000 more pilots so each individual pilots portion will be smaller ( on average ). In a hyper competitive industry productivity is one of the keys to success ( think SW). I wish we could return to the post Deregulation world I was hired into which is pretty much what Timbo suggested but no matter who represents us that will never be. We can still make improvements in all areas of our contract because a consistently profitable company will float all boats.
I will still bet a steak dinner to anybody on here that DL will be hiring first quarter 2014, among all the naysayers on APC any takers ?

Not surprising in that everybody talks about SWA and how we need to be like them....

A random fwiw; a ratio of GS's in May to the pilot count for the category (albeit June category count but so be it I already had those numbers and I'm being lazy :D).

I think I'm doing this right, hope I am, but the ratio goes like this. For ATL 320 B there were 88 GSs and 72 pilots. So there was 1 GS per 0.82 pilots. ATL 73N A was 38 GSs and 294 pilots, or 1 GS per 7.74 pilots.

I was just curious who was really dishing out the most GSs and the winner is... 80ktsclamp. As always.

01) 1 GS : 0.82 pilots in ATL 320 B
02) 1 GS : 0.98 pilots in ATL 320 A
03) 1 GS : 1.13 pilots in SLC 320 B
04) 1 GS : 1.20 pilots in DTW 320 A
05) 1 GS : 1.20 pilots in NYC 320 A
06) 1 GS : 1.21 pilots in NYC M88 B
07) 1 GS : 1.22 pilots in NYC 320 B
08) 1 GS : 1.45 pilots in DTW 320 B
09) 1 GS : 1.59 pilots in ATL M88 B
10) 1 GS : 1.85 pilots in SLC 320 A
11) 1 GS : 1.98 pilots in NYC M88 A
12) 1 GS : 2.09 pilots in ATL M88 A
13) 1 GS : 2.51 pilots in MSP M88 A
14) 1 GS : 2.51 pilots in MSP M88 B
15) 1 GS : 2.66 pilots in NYC 765 B
16) 1 GS : 2.90 pilots in MSP 320 B
17) 1 GS : 2.96 pilots in ATL 767 B
18) 1 GS : 2.98 pilots in MSP 320 A
19) 1 GS : 3.15 pilots in CVG M88 A
20) 1 GS : 3.18 pilots in ATL DC9 B
21) 1 GS : 3.28 pilots in SLC 73N A
22) 1 GS : 3.73 pilots in CVG M88 B
23) 1 GS : 4.15 pilots in NYC 765 A
24) 1 GS : 4.29 pilots in ATL 767 A
25) 1 GS : 4.33 pilots in DTW 744 A
26) 1 GS : 4.84 pilots in DTW 744 B
27) 1 GS : 4.85 pilots in LAX 73N B
28) 1 GS : 5.05 pilots in SLC 73N B
29) 1 GS : 5.89 pilots in ATL DC9 A
30) 1 GS : 6.00 pilots in CVG 73N B
31) 1 GS : 6.20 pilots in CVG 73N A
32) 1 GS : 7.00 pilots in NYC 73N B
33) 1 GS : 7.31 pilots in LAX 7ER B
34) 1 GS : 7.74 pilots in ATL 73N A
35) 1 GS : 8.09 pilots in SLC 7ER A
36) 1 GS : 8.86 pilots in DTW 7ER A
37) 1 GS : 8.98 pilots in ATL 7ER B
38) 1 GS : 9.03 pilots in NYC 7ER A
39) 1 GS : 9.14 pilots in LAX 73N A
40) 1 GS : 9.30 pilots in DTW 777 B
41) 1 GS : 9.67 pilots in ATL 765 A
42) 1 GS : 9.74 pilots in ATL 73N B
43) 1 GS : 10.11 pilots in DTW 777 A
44) 1 GS : 10.75 pilots in NYC 73N A
45) 1 GS : 11.13 pilots in ATL 765 B
46) 1 GS : 11.40 pilots in DTW 7ER B
47) 1 GS : 11.50 pilots in SLC 7ER B
48) 1 GS : 12.94 pilots in DTW 330 B
49) 1 GS : 13.27 pilots in NYC 7ER B
50) 1 GS : 15.82 pilots in LAX 7ER A
51) 1 GS : 16.25 pilots in ATL 7ER A
52) 1 GS : 19.22 pilots in MSP 7ER A
53) 1 GS : 19.70 pilots in ATL 777 B
54) 1 GS : 20.44 pilots in ATL 777 A
55) 1 GS : 24.90 pilots in MSP 7ER B
56) 1 GS : 41.33 pilots in SEA 7ER A
57) 1 GS : 56.00 pilots in DTW DC9 B
58) 1 GS : 81.50 pilots in SEA 7ER B
59) 1 GS : NO GS pilots in ATL 330 A
60) 1 GS : NO GS pilots in ATL 330 B
61) 1 GS : NO GS pilots in DTW 330 A
62) 1 GS : NO GS pilots in DTW DC9 A