Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 1655460)

IMHO, we as DAL pilots are going to see little to nothing from the Virgin Atlantic JV. We will see some domestic growth, but that will be buried in the other growth that DAL sees in the coming years. That leaves international. THE reason for this alliance is Heathrow. Period. It is a slot controlled airport, and they ain't giving any of that to us. The only growth we will see internationally will be a 50/50 on additional LHR slots, and that's if we're lucky.

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 1655539)

Oh man, that's a tall order to try and cement almost a year out from openers. Heck I thought nothing before noon on day one and a 16 hour or more long call was a slam dunk with our 117 negotiations, but we ended up with 10 and 13 and then gave back the 13. :rolleyes:

And of course, and I hate using this because it seems like a cop out, but it depends on other things in the contract. Scope is, to me, the most important section. Its not just about RJ's of course. While we're almost busy counting our C2015 raises already, I'm way more concerned with the potential lack of compliance at the end of the balancing/cure period (coupled with no intention to ever comply) in the JV Scope. I'm deeply concerned at how the VA inclusion will end up playing out too. Then there's the Pacific, Gol/AeroMexico, etc.

Then there's "RJ's" or "small jet scope", which I also don't like to call it. If I crashed a birthday party at your house with 76 people could I get away with it by saying the vehicle that brought them there was "small"?

Heck, I don't even like the large corporate jet jobs that we gave up after winning a slam dunk grievance. Those were dang good jobs and IMO they belonged to us 100%. Correction…we won that grievance, so it wasn't just my opinion; we owned those jobs. And best case we sold them for a trinket, worst case gave them away to help management save face or whatever. I would have worked with the company to address some unique concerns for those positions, but they needed to be DL pilot jobs. At the very least in the event we furlough. Instead we rolled over and gave those up to non union pilots flying work that was a massively clear contract violation. But no one else seemed to care.

Then there's the AS code share abuse that, while its correcting itself to some degree, is only doing so because of the decisions made by AS management. As far as we know, AS pilots are still the preferred lift providers by DL management. I would like to see that carve out tightened significantly. At the very least, to match what's going on now anyway. Another perfect "buy low" opportunity for us if we're serious about the section in the contract that defines what every other section in the contract applies to.

As to "RJ's", while "it depends" on many factors, I absolutely want to see meaningful reductions in the allowable number of 70 and 90 seat outsourced aircraft. Absolutely not one single aircraft larger than that (be on the lookout for some scam whereby its floated that 9000 seats of DCI on 100 seaters is better than 10000 seats on DCI in 50 or 70 seaters…I really hope we're not stupid enough to fall for that).

The most likely way to achieve the reductions would be to sunset provisions with DCI carriers that are always under staggered contracts anyway. I'd think that for the length of servie for the average contract (3-4 years) 50-100 existing DCI airframes in the large RJ category should be parked one way or another with absolutely nothing additional at DCI to replace them with. That is a minimum for me. And I absolutely expect to be significantly disappointed. :mad:

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 1655552)

OK.. time for my "cop out" question. What are Yu willing to pay for large RJ reduction? Personally I am not willing to pay one red cent for something that is never going to amount to anything anyway... YMMV.

Similar question with the AS carve out. While I think that possible could rekindle, it doesn't appear that it is likely. So caution in this area, tempered with healthy skepticism is warranted. Jury's out on this one for me....

I have already conceded that we aren't really gonna benefit from Virgin Atlantic other than a little domestic feed here and there and that will be pretty invisible to us.... Maybe we can make some gains elsewhere....

Originally Posted by atpcliff (Post 1655544)

Anybody know anything about a Delta/Atlas Air partnership???

Originally Posted by PilotFrog (Post 1655396)

I heard an interesting rumor about our older 757s (5500s), the NBA, and charter service. More involved than just keeping them for the charters, anyone else hear this?

Originally Posted by DeadHead (Post 1655561)

Was it that engineering was going to start breeding the older 757s out of habitat. Much cheaper than buying new 737-9MV2X3, or whatever series designation they're up to.

Would it be weird if I wanted to watch?

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 1655570)

I'd rather watch two 75's going at it any day than a Super-9 and a paper mache Airbus.

Wait, what are we talking about again?

Originally Posted by JungleBus (Post 1655282)

Excellent points all. Out of curiosity, what would an acceptable C2015 small-jet scope section look like for you, gloopy?

Originally Posted by scambo1 (Post 1655591)

I saw this Dal 75 tapping an Eskimo 737 somewhere. I was gonna tag in, but ... What would my family think if they found out? Nah! Somebody slap me.