Don't worry, purple believes in what he writes. He has apps in everywhere and will soon be moving on from terrible Delta to greener pastures.

I don't know how you got that from my post. I am just saying that our contract is not responsible... good or bad... for everything that affects us. Our lives simply aren't that black and white. Some on here want to blame dALPA for every ill that confronts us even if they have nothing to do with it. Frankly, I find that kind of thinking very shallow. For example: dALPA doesn't buy airplanes, but they do set the rates for operation of any equipment that management buys. Then, guys blame dALPA because our career earnings are not what many expected. Yes, it is my windmill, but is is apropos here. There are other examples. My point is that much of the anger is directed at the wrong target. YMMV.

I certainly hope so. I know I wouldn't want to work anywhere where I was so miserable and so mistreated....

http://i.usatoday.net/sports/gallery..._tennessee.jpg


dammit, not a single picture of an Auburn players and UT player locked in a man hug.

oh well. 100% agree.

Are you aware that reporting in 8 (or so) hours would put you in violation of the FARs?

Dickson is relying on pilots who aren't really aware of their contractual rights or the FARs and will just "comply" with whatever he puts in a memo. And so far, DALPA is letting him get away with it.

Thread creep and deflection warning (I'm venting here).

An awful lot of our execution only works if the rest of the players on the team are executing. I saw a good example of this a couple of days ago where for want of two submarine sandwiches a crew got blamed for an all day long hour plus delay which caused no less than the vice head of State of a Nation to miss a connection. Had I any idea that the caterer would wait 45 minutes, then audit the airplane's provisions, then take another 30 minutes it would have been easy enough to buy food give it to the A line and expense it ... and very nearly every flight on the ramp had the identical issue and was on the same delay, for no good reason.

I do not know why some numbskull in tower ever gets in an authority contest with a Captain. It's a dumb way to run an airline. Why does Delta put a $64,000,000.00+ asset and hundreds of people at the mercy of a vendor that pays their employees $10 an hour? Why doesn't Delta have redundancy ( a Red Coat for ops if you will ) who can pump gas, drive a tug and throw a couple of crew meals on board an airplane? Pay this "ops Manager" with money fined from the Vendor's contract for specific non-performance and put in the contract it is up to Delta what nonperformance is. Better yet, if Delta's values are important; hire Delta people.

Then Delta has the state of it's DCI flying operation. Don't even get me started on how having 7 operators who can not fly or work on the same equipment type create inefficiencies in scheduling and deployment of assets.

Delta's a great Company and we execute well, but there's a lot of low hanging fruit if management would take responsibility for operating Delta instead of outsourcing Delta. If we need to outsource for lower costs, then that's an acknowledgement that management itself has failed to properly manage it's costs.

In summary, management thinks some pilots delay flights. I've never seen that happen from my vantage point 4 feet away from where the decisions are made.

I haven't been on reserve since 117 came into being, so I have to admit a bit of ignorance on the subject, hence my question. Pretty sure I should said 10 (or so), but I wasn't paying 100% attention. Point is, that the contract will take precedence, and FARs will trump that. Any memo, I wouldn't think is legally binding...

As to dALPA "allowing" him to get away with it, that's a bit of a stretch I think. There are a ton of guys out there that just aren't as informed as others. Many have other jobs and other preoccupations, and just really don't care to live and breathe this stuff. Probably lots more in that category than you can acknowledge. So, maybe you are right, he is depending on that. Maybe I'm one of them. My fault... not dALPA's.

Pilots who aren't aware of the PWA provisions, or ALPA's guidance about them, aren't paying attention. My reps have put the information out. Have your's?

There are situations where it may be in a pilot's best interests to follow the Dickson memo. If acknowledging the trip gets them out of the hotel and off their own nickel, I think they would do it. I also think that if ALPA rolled on it the way you're inferring, they would have been advising us to follow the memo, and not the PWA.

Have you seen that anywhere?

Widebody RFP is out. Details on Delta net. 50 aircraft and the 777-300 is in the request contrary to some news reports. Decision 3rd or 4th qtr.

Delta will evaluate the Airbus A330-200 and -300, Airbus A350-900 and -1000, Boeing 777-300ER, and Boeing 787-8, -9 and -10 aircraft variants with corresponding engines manufactured by General Electric, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce.