I did not like the name, for reasons Dan Ford himself explained very well:

• There is no such thing as a "regional jet." It is simply a smaller unit of the brand's productive capacity.
• There was nothing to defend. ALPA was, as if following a very precise playbook, negotiating scope concessions in time to facilitate the delivery of aircraft ordered y e a r s earlier. If you wanted a timeline for C2K concessions, you needed only compare a graph of what aircraft Delta had accepted and which were scheduled for delivery.

The name was unfortunate, because, rather than focus the attention on the reforms needed to restore ALPA to it's core beliefs the name made it appear to be a selfish ploy on the part of express pilots. Strategically, I believe the litigation was mostly aimed at scaring ALPA leadership by making them realize just how bad their policies had the potential to fail a major carrier. Invalidation of Delta scope, in it's entirety, would force ALPA's leadership to address it's failures.

But, Dan Ford was kinda stuck by this end game scenario. He himself is (or was) probably the most pro-ALPA guy I've ever met. Even he did not want what the lawsuit objectively asked for. In retrospect ALPA's settlement of the litigation was inspired brilliance, because the changes to the Admin Manual facilitated mainline control of the process and working together. The RJDC crowd did not write what made it into the Admin Manual ... ALPA legal probably did. It is good policy and a shame that ALPA's leadership chooses to absolutely ignore it's existence today.

Of course, another reason I disliked the name was that I thought the ATR and Dash 8's were far superior aircraft to the CRJ platform (they would have performed much better financially) ... why defend RJ's? Delta ordered waaaay too many of them. The MD88 is a much better jet and you folks know my feelings on the MD88 :)

A better title would have been "Delta pilots for unity" but someone would have turned that in to Delta Pilots-FU ... it would have put the Delta MEC in the position of having to explain why half of Delta's flying was not being performed by Delta pilots, as they tried to explain that Comair and ASA pilots were not Delta pilots ... the resulting Q & A would have been awkward for a union leader, as it damn well should have been with Delta pilots on the street while Comair and ASA were growing rapidly.

This is absolutely the future. With the improvements in aircraft technologies (automation, ground based flying abilities, etc..), the perceived shortage of pilots, and the airlines ability to save pilots costs (MPL's would surely be paid less) it becomes the perfect storm of pressure on the government to make regulatory changes to existing FAR's to make this happen. The public will buy into it because most people already think that the captain is the only one that fly's the airplane so what's the difference between a "co-pilot" and an MPL crew member?

It's inevitable and I don't think that any union can really stop it.

Very good concise summary.

We might not be able to stop it, but we can manage it to benefit us. We need to get out in front.

ALPA has already stated it's distain for the MPL. We need to offer an alternative, based on our core belief, unity.

Where do Captains come from if MPL's become the norm? Likewise what happens when the Captain becomes incapacitated and the MPL "Cruise Pilot" has to actually land? Hmmm...

The way the Euros do it, the MPL cruise pilot is one out of three. He never takes off or lands. Much lower pay and benefits-- kinda like the old PFE's (in terms of career expectations, not skill).

I think one could make the argument that in the wake of AF 447 and the Asiana crash, and possibly the Colgan accident, reducing pilot flight training is a step in the wrong direction.

Get Sully on the Today show and start asking if people would trust their lives to a lower paid, less experienced and trained pilot at the helm over the ocean at night. Sleep tight!

Great, so we start flying domestic ops now with three pilots? Otherwise, putting new hire MPLs only on Oceanic Ops and removing one of the more senior FOs would be a seniority abrogation. It would work with LBP, but not the way we do it.

I don't know about domestic ops, but now that you mention it, with the new FAR's, they could probably do some funky scheduling things with a MPL on a domestic crew.

But you are correct, it would be an abrogation, and we'd need to agree to it for it to happen. Impossible you say? We agreed to terminate our pension, to outsource half of our domestic flying...

I'm just playing devils advocate. I think Bar has the right idea, it's an idea that ALPA shoved aside in favor of other remunerations at a time when they needed to show unity. I don't know if the past two decades have taught us all a lesson or not. I guess we'll see.

So take half of the 7ER, 330, 765, 744 and 777 FO list and hand it over to MPLs?

I'd think they'd have an easier time dropping the 1500 hour rule and Age 65 limit to unlimited as long as you hold a 1st class medical. Just saying.

Management wet-dream! Disaster for anyone in the bottom 2/3. And definitely a few more grey hairs for the guys at the top.