I don't GAS about productivity. I push throttles. You push throttles, Carl Spackler pushes throttles. None of us bought or determines what operates where. The productivity argument is great right up until those really big and really productive gas guzzling airplanes go to the desert. Then we all lose. Pay me for pushing throttles. Pay the RJ guys for pushing throttles (on Delta pay scales). This will sink in someday.

But I'll stipulate that the "what can I get for this" is a better argument.

Part II:

Major airlines other choice is to accept a reset in the express flying cost model which probably doubles labor costs. Even then, they will constantly lose pilots to other express carriers offering better pay or signing bonus money.

If express flying gets too expensive, then our feed from smaller markets will diminish. Everything in this business is still running slim margins. Can we afford to lose that business traveller from Topeka to Asia?

The other advantages to unity have been well covered here before:

• Currently our airline operates not three fleet types in express operations, but something like 14. We have ExpressJet, Chautauqua, Compass, GoJet Airlines, Endeavor Air, Shuttle America and SkyWest ... none of those operator's airplanes, or pilots, are interchangeable. Think of the logistical nightmare FAR 117 becomes during irops. How much more efficient could our airline be by scheduling those airplanes (which cost 2/3rd's of what we're paying for 737-900's) in ways that make the most sense instead of around 6 different Certificates?
• How much do the redundancies in Corporate structures cost? Right now if a Delta manager wants a change, he tells a Delta Connection manager who tells a Skywest manager who tells an Expressjet manager to execute a decision.

The other part of this nut will be going to the FAA and possibly Congress to revise flight training rules. 1,500 hours is a nearly insurmountable wall. We should want to revise this BEFORE Airlines 4 America beats us to the punch with some sort of a euro style multi crew license. We should integrate our training proposal on the basis of military flight training which has some reliance on mentorship. That mentorship should be based in the Delta way of doing things.


Some think it is very important that Delta interview these pilots. I agree. Express flying on a Delta ticket is Delta flying. Those pilots should be Delta pilots. Which division Delta wants to operate it with is up to management, but as a union, we should do our best to make sure one of us is flying the plane.

It appears you do not disagree. You've posted a potential solution to the math problem. One caveat, Delta doesn't operate in isolation. There are 2 other network carriers that have significant outsourced feed. To get your counterparty to "yes" you have to recognize the environment in which you're operating.

If you can show Delta that they'll have improved revenue due to stable feed while the other carriers don't/won't....also remember DCI airframes and pilots are planned to shrink by about 20% over the duration of C2012.

Expressjet pilots just voted down their TA. Eagle decided not even to release it to their pilots. ALPA's own data reflected a near hiring shortage in 2007 before the financial crisis pushed that off until now.

Those data points converge, just as Captain Lee Moak says, at a shortage in pay and working conditions.

You and I think strategically. Was it an accidental whim that resulted in our jobs here at Delta, or did we train, prepare, invest our time and money into what we figured would be a good career? At that time the model was pretty obvious. At the beginning of this Century it became apparent that model was pretty obviously broken. I was part of maybe 5% who made it out of the interview pool ... those are pretty slim odds for a student picking a career with a $100,000 buy in.

Management is already investigating a sort of ab-inito, multi crew license proposal. Management will solve the math problem. They will solve it with us, or without us. It has always been your preference to be engaged.

Sharpen your pencil Sir. I'll be glad to assist. Politically, this is all win for ALPA and ALPA's leadership. I do not know if Captain Moak needs the express pilots to win, but this would gain their support.

Almost certainly wrong. For each of the last 7 years, 4,000+ CFI certificates were issued. A 98% decrease in one year seems unlikely.

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/avi...Air17-2012.xls

2013 data hasn't been released yet.

Could be, I suppose. The MEC is meeting this week, so we'll know soon enough if there's been a deal.

Good to hear.

Are you suggesting that ALPA act proactively?:p About 15 years too late!

Seriously, though, I agree that if we don't step up, someone else will (A4A). I've said before that we should take it a step even further... take over licensure... just like the AMA does with Doctors and the ABA does for Attorneys. "Solve" the FAA problem and the A4A problem with our own in-house solution. That would go a long way towards beating back the foreign threat too, and consolidate political power in the hands of pilots...

Your file won't download. I guess he could have been blowing smoke up our.....

Bar, this is what we were trying to do by supporting the Comair pilots during their strike!!...closing the gap between mainline and DCI..then JC and Ford formed the RJDC to sue for DOH throughout the whole mainline list, held the DL furloughees hostage after 9/11, and rebuked any offer from DALPA to help furloughed ALPA pilots in return for FUTURE hiring advantages with mainline for ALPA pilots, basically quashing any sense of UNITY between DCI and mainline.

What's to prevent the same thing from happening when senior RJ captains at DCI realize they can just sue to place themselves ahead of you after we spend a huge amount of negotiating capital with management to bring all of DCI under the mainline umbrella? Unity goes both ways..

I'd like to believe that the market forces and pilot shortage will facilitate our vision, but I'm afraid of a few disgruntled pilots with lawyers that will take us back to the Comair fiasco.

(By the way..responded to your previous post on the previous page, but can't seem to type fast enough to keep up with you guys!)

On reserve at ASA, I see the gamut of trips that come up for the larger RJs. There are some 8 or 10 leg 4 days worth 24+, but more common are 12-14 leg 4 days worth 20ish. And of course there is some 5 leg day, low credit junk to go around too. That is all way better then the 50 seat scheds, there I saw 24 and 26 leg 4 days - 7/6/6/5!! Those were rough trips- generally less than 1hr of credit per leg, plenty of airport appreciation and lots of <10hr overnights. Its been a little while since I flew that plane and I think 117 and mainline doing some of the CHA/AGS/BHM etc turns cut down some of the ugliness. Longest leg is about 1400nm, but over 1000 is not that common. Stage length seems to make a huge difference on QOL.....


Unfortunately, the 9E capitulation was facilitated by DL and DALPA, by way of the preferential interview. The "C-scale" was sold to great effect by the carrot of a short-cut to a DL seniority # (And the play was repeated even more effectively over at PSA). It would be helpful if the carrots could be offered to those who do the right thing (ie, refusing to accept substandard living conditions), instead of those who are undermining your long term objectives. While there is a percentage at the top of our list who are content where they are with decent pay and QOL; most of us are grinding it out weekly and keeping our noses clean in hopes of getting the chance to be junior on the 88 or 717 someday.



I understand your bitterness, and I do not discount the hardship it caused, but I think your perspective is colored by your own experience. You have said that the RJ pilots received a "windfall". A few benefited, a little. Most got a meh job for crap pay with a crap schedule at a crappy company. Quite a few ended up getting furloughed from or losing their bottom feeding jobs. Most of us had few, if any other options at the time. I had a couple thousand hrs and an ATP when I got hired into the RJ (around the time DL sold us off), and to get to DL/NW/CAL/UAL/AMR/LLC/AT/SW, one needed 121 PIC time on his/her resume. Should I have gone to Great Lakes or CommutAir instead of ASA? Should I have chosen even poorer pay and QOL on my journey to a mainline seniority #? Perhaps, the conventional wisdom now seems to be that new pilots should go to the outfit with the worst pay and work rules because turnover is high and a quick upgrade will get you to mainline fastest. Right now, some of the worst companies to work for are the ones filling classes. That is the dynamic in place, because there is a rising level of desperation among regional pilots. The DL furloughs sucked, one of my commuting buddies was in that group. The givebacks and the pension losses sucked. And yes, there may have been some short term turnabout with RJ pilots benefiting at your loss. But in the long-term, anyone with a DL # is still doing better than any RJ pilot out there. And RJ pilots cannot do much beyond what they are now, voting down concessionary TA's, applying for better jobs and, sometimes voting with their feet and just leaving the industry. You as a Delta Airlines Pilot have the say on what your scope is in the next contract. And yes, "a few (seriously misguided) disgruntled pilots with lawyers" can make problems, but don't let a few arshlochs being arshlochs keep you from doing the right thing. And when you (DL pilots) decide on how to deal with this thing, let us know. Plenty of us playing the long game who would like to help, through official channels or otherwise.


Bucking Bar: I am continually impressed by your insight and profoundly ethical sense of decency in most everything you post about. You might just be the smartest guy in the room.