I love this comment....


What happens when a vote is required before anyone knows exactly what they vote for.

Perhaps Delta could offer the Administration a unique opportunity. Delta could provide free airline transportation for the entire White House Administration along with all members of the Senate and Congress that voted for ACA. Like all things free however, there is the caveat:

No one in the Administration, Senate or Congress can know prior to boarding, what destination they will be flown to or if there is any destination at all. In addition, the plane they board will do so without a pilot, being flown completely by automated systems.

Of course, it is quite possible that the plane would run out of fuel and crash, it could land in a desert or it could take them all to a wonderful vacation spot where everything is free. The deal though, is that they won’t know and once in the air, have no say so in what happens, you know, just like the US Taxpayer and ACA.

Seems ok to me.

ACL, as you know the downside protection in the TAJV was introduced in LOA 16.
Unfortunately MOU14 moved the ability to enforce any of that downside protection from March 31, 2011 to March 31, 2015.

Still the TAJV language is the best JV language we have and represents to my knowledge some of the strongest JV language in any contract.

That's why I've been so frustrated when previously there was a lack of urgency when it came to recognizing the long term trend in JV flying and that's why I welcome the recent shift by the MEC to publicly acknowledge that there's a problem brewing and we don't like it one bit.

Cheers
George

What's unfair is to say anybody could have seen that, because the CS and IAAC committees put out projections of big increases in Transatlantic capacity that never materialized.

What's untrue is that we were capacity constrained by mod lines...
After canceling 14+ Transatlantic destinations we had ample unused aircraft to send two a month to Asia for the lie-flat mods...

The reality is that the reduced capacity and pullback to the Partner hubs AMS and CDG helped Delta increase profits by shifting flying to our JV partners...

Now management is boasting that we are flying higher YOY capacity with 13 fewer jets. For comparison, the potential gains going from 47.3% to 50% in MOU14 were 6-7 flights.

Cheers
George

Then why is council 66 posting articles like this:

GOL and Delta Achieve Alliance Milestones - Yahoo! Finance

This seems good for the company, but not good for Delta pilots.

I know this is all speculative hearsay on my behalf, but I'm fairly confident we will see any type of TA/JV non-compliance issues folded into the next contract hung over contractual improvements and possibly aircraft orders. It's all speculative, but the cure period ends around the same time openers can start being exchanged with the company.

I don't believe that our MEC will holdback C2015 because of section 1 non-compliance issues. Instead the language will be rewritten into our next contract in exchange for some other improvement in our next contract. Basically in exchange for TA/JV non-compliance forgiveness we will include an additional 1-2% pay raise each year on top of the existing C2015 negotiated pay raises. The perception is that management has given us something to look the other way, but the reality will be that we negotiated for something twice.

FWIW reps I've talked to have said the same thing. Measurement period was way too long.

Perfect...

I especially like the pilotless and fuel language.

And how is this actually good for us. I agree with you, we will monetize it and include some aircraft order bait and switch.

I don't really have a better solution because I have come to realize that reality is while we have downside contract language, we do not actually enforce it to the company's detriment or to the pilots' benefit.

Does it bother anyone else that our CBA only now "takes a hard stance" on our scope over some uproar on their word choice in a communique'? Why don't they do it because it is what is best for the pilots?

I am a pro-DAL pilot, but I was also here in "the good old days."

Downside protections were introduced in LOA 16, but like the percentage of flying we have gotten the company to agree to, language thorough out the TAJV has improved. Its far from perfect, but note that there has been progress made. I hope to see continued progress with the JV in the coming years. Better measurement periods is a start.

George, their projections that were presented buy the IAAC came from the OAG data which comes from what the company puts out in their timetable. Network changed the plan. Period.

Not disagreeing. I said, Hindsight is 20/20. That is the way we see most of the PWA language and determine what needs improvement.

Yes three years with a one year cure is too long. A much shorter measurement period is needed to tighten the flex that is in the current system. No one seems to disagree with that.

I have not heard of negotiating on this until they are actually out of compliance. Time will tell. The IAAC and the MEC are watching it closely, and communicating it to the pilots. That is good.