In other news, it is becoming too contaminated at Fukishima to safely work there. Yet, somebody must work there to prevent several disasters from occurring, disasters which could happen anyway. Some scientists have been stating all along that Tokyo should have been evacuated. The primary consideration of the Japanese government, then and now, is preventing the failure of the government. They determined an evacuation of Tokyo would result in collapse of Japanese civil order.

Long story short, both Narita and Haneda may be a place no one wants to go to, or worse, inside an exclusion zone. Someone will eventually want the numbers on inflight risks over the Pacific. I sure hope this does not get very, very, ugly for us.

 

Hey FtB, how does one upload an excel or PDF file? Do you have to convert it to a jpeg or gif first?

The payrate for the 744 was from the NWA CBA dated 22Nov2004. The total rate, inclusive of the MPPP was $273.15. I adjusted it for the MPPP number from Section 1.L.2 to get the actual cash pay rate of $264.96 + the 3% MPPP.

L. Retirement Savings Plan Contributions
L.1. The Company shall make employer contributions to the Retirement Savings Plan under Section 3.5.1. of said plan at a rate of 3% of Recognized Compensation (as defined in the Retirement Savings Plan).
L.2. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the collective bargaining agreement, the compensation of each pilot who is a Participant in the Retirement Savings Plan shall be reduced semimonthly in such a manner so as to offset, dollar for dollar, the amount contributed by the Company to said pilot’s Employer Contribution Account as an employer contribution.

It's still not enough.

 

So, you're saying it's gonna go junior?

 

Denny. 'Preciate it, but no need for you to apologize. I don't blame DALPA for us getting furloughed. I am with Scoop. I have just grown very weary of the spin. ALPA/DALPA is incapable of admitting that they have ever made a mistake and/or could've done things better. They are exactly like a politician in that regard. I have a very low BS tolerance and ALPA has far exceeded that level. I don't know that DPA is the answer, but IMHO the notion that it has 4-5000 cards or whatever it is, has nothing to to with people enamored with Tim Capplinger. It's continued dissatisfaction and perceived wrong-direction of their current union.

I agree with Bar, it would be better to fix ALPA from within. That just doesn't seem possible when you can take communications from the union, white out any references to DALPA/ALPA and it would read just like it was coming from management. I have seen no signs of that changing.

 

Here are a couple of my concerns. We have had record profits now for a couple of years. We all know that record profits can not continue forever. There will be a "nice" downturn eventually. When? I dont know. But we need to capitalize on these up-turns.

1) We should have returned to restoration or close to it, while we were starting this record profit trajectory around C2012. In other words, I think "next" time (18 mos) the company's profit steam will start fading and in reality there would be little or no money on the table for the gains we want. I have already been told by a rep to expect a sustainable pay raise next time (set up for non-restoration).
We all know that what goes up, must eventually come down. Think about it. I hope I am wrong but we should have aimed to get a lot more in 2012. When profitability slides, the company will come and ask for concessions that will be far more expensive than our measly 19.7% in 3 years (COMPOUNDED).

2) The JV 3 year compliance-window is bogus too. In 3 years many things can happen that will favor the company. We need to have a 3 month window to get the company back on track. 3 years is a holiday for the company. I can see RA exploit this 3 years with a nice glass of Louis and cigar. Who are we kidding. 3 years??? Dont get it.

TEN

 

Gents, I have a question for you as I contemplate which plane to bid when I return from mil leave: which airport is easiest to drive to from Rhode Island? When I mapquest EWR, LGA, & JFK, they all come out roughly the same. In practice, that can't be right.

 

First, I would say quit arguing like a child. We can disagree on a point without me thinking I am perfect. Do you think you are perfect because you disagree with me.

This whole Status Quo thing is the most misunderstood concept. Status-Quo is the contract. So there is never any prohibition against following the contract. Individuals can exercise their rights under the contract any time they want, so can the company. What is prohibited is "illegal concerted activity". That means you cannot try to pressure the company or individuals from exercising their contractual rights by some type of organized activity, whether the union is organizing it or not.

So when you say establish a new Status Quo the only way to do that is to write a new contract. You can't just decide at some point to unilaterally change the contract because of some changed circumstance. Under the RLA there is only one time that you are able to engage in concerted activity. That is when you are in Section 6 negotiations, the NMB has released you from mediation, and the thirty day cooling off period has expired. That is it.

Now back to the original point. Did Delta pilots fly excess green slips that prevented furloughed pilots from being recalled. The answer to that is absolutely "NO!!!!". Full stop. If you claim otherwise, you need to provide some documentation, because I tracked that stuff monthly as I was deeply involved in designing the scheduling system that was negotiated in 2004. We were grossly overstaffed from 2002-2004 and there were very few green slips given out.

There are two types of green slips given out. One is when you are chronically understaffed and they are given out regularly to fill in shortfalls in reserve coverage. We have seen many of these types of green slips this summer, but that is the first time you have seen that in the last 3 years. When the company is giving out these green slips regularly, they will bid out positions or hire more pilots because it is grossly more expensive to have green slips fill up a month rather than have an extra pilot at straight pay.

The other type of green slip is a temporary shortage caused by special events; thunderstorms, snow, hurricane, etc. etc. These types will never trigger a need for more staffing because it is not cost effective to have pilots sitting around for months and months to only fill in every once in a while. They will fill these flights somehow. If they don't have green slips, they will inverse assign pilots. If they can't inverse assign, they will reroute other pilots. So in this case, having a green slip only determines who gets this extra flying. A green slip lets someone volunteer, while the other two force the flying on whoever gets tapped for it.

As I said before, the only time when any significant number of green slips were assigned was in the summer of 2005. We had negotiated a new scheduling and bidding system (PBS) and we new that this would decrease our head count by hundreds of pilots. Since pilots were still retiring, we knew we would be short in the summer of 2005 and then overstaffed again in the Fall of 2005 when the new scheduling rules kicked in. We still recalled pilots all through 2005 until bankruptcy, but we made a deliberate choice to run lean through the summer so we would not have to recall a pilot and then furlough him again.

NWA had pilots that were double furloughed, including Caplinger, and to this day they talk about like it happened yesterday. In fact, the whole DPA started simply because Caplinger could not get over it.

So you can criticize that choice, most pilots that hear the rationale agree that it is worse to double furlough than it was to stretch out the summer like we did.

The facts are, we were overstaffed all through 2002-2004, there were very few green slips that went out, and if no one put in a green slip the company would simply cover the flights with inverse assignments and reroutes. Those are the facts. This has nothing to do with perfection, this has to do with facts that exist.

You were furloughed, that must have sucked badly. I wasn't so I can't really know how you felt but I can imagine. However, that doesn't give you the right to make stuff up because you were angry. People cared about the furloughs, we gave a lot of money to ensure they had medical coverage and a loan fund to take care of people. We tracked manning month by month and scrutinized manning. We went back to the arbitrator and got him to order a recall schedule established even when Delta was grossly overstaffed. We considered the impact on furloughs on every decision we made.

We pursued every avenue that was available to us legally and went way, way beyond what was required of us. Despite their being very few green slips, the ones that were assigned were simply a matter of who gets the flying. Could senior pilots volunteer for it or would junior pilots have it forced on them?

So all this talk about Status Quo and a no green slip campaign are the result of your understandable frustration with being furloughed. If it makes you feel better to attack your fellow pilots with no basis then you are free to do so. The facts are that not one furloughed pilot was held back from recall by green slips. You can call me names but you can't change the facts.

 

These numbers are completely meaningless without an apples to apples comparison adjusted for inflation.....you know, that whole loss of buying power thing. He'll, first year regional pilots ($20k/yr) would be considered rich when comparing to the upper class people of the 1700's. a dumb comparison though, I think we can both agree.

What are the C2k rates adjusted for inflation? FTB or anyone else happen to have those handy?

 

Alfa,

My apologies - I was referring to DALPA being perfect, not you, and it obviously was not very clear - my bad. As to being able to disagree - I agree we can disagree and still be civil.

You will never be able to convince me that it is OK to perform overtime work with Pilots on furlough. I totally disagree with this concept. As Denny said time to move on. Call me stubborn or obstinate, fine I get it. You can make distinctions about being understaffed vs Thunderstorms OK. I guess that is the difference between an Association and a Union.

I really didn't even mind being furloughed (notwithstanding the two exceptions listed below) I realize that a company may have to furlough in down times for its own good. However there were two points about the furlough that did bother me:

1. Pilots greesn-slipping.
2. DCI hiring by the thousands while DAL furloughed.

Obviously the no- furlough clause was not that great - although it did eventually contribute to guys getting recalled. And maybe DALPA even wised up replacing the no-furlough clause with economic penalties - removing seats from RJs etc. As I have said DALPA did some good things at this time - Medical care for furloughees is just one example.

But I will never change my mind on Pilots green-slipping with other Pilots on furlough - in my humble opinion it is flat out wrong.


Scoop

 

That's sounds like it might be a bit of a trek from Rhode Island. I think majority of the trips leave from LGA and JFK, which probably will be the easiest commutes for you. The crossings into NJ are where the backups tend to happen. I'm on the 88 and most of our stuff is out of LGA. We have a bunch of stuff out JFK too and occasionally a few trips out of EWR. You'll probably want to avoid EWR that shouldn't be a problem for you.

Not 100% on the following but,
7ER is mostly out of JFK, but also has some LGA trips. It also fly a good amount of domestic as well. Word is top 20-30% of category can hold international more or less.

320 not too sure, but similar to the 88 with maybe a few more EWR trips. 88 and 320 tend to switch trips with each others' a categories throughout the year.

The 744 seems to be a really good deal especially for local guys. Small category and high time trips to some of the nicer destinations.

Not sure where your coming in seniority wise, but I'm guessing with your drive holding a line and minimizing low time trips is key.
Hope this helps, best of luck and thanks for your service.