Originally Posted by dalad

It's T u for Texas.

Originally Posted by Alan Shore

Having finally read the article with the offending quotes, I have these observations (Caution!! Glass-is-half-full perspective ahead!!!):

Again, this is my ever-optimistic possible interpretation of what I read in the article. YMMV...

Originally Posted by Alan Shore

1.36 cents in 2013, according to the Contract History that just came out.

Originally Posted by Purple Drank

The problem with your spin, Alan (and it is most certainly spin) is that Moak himself apparently claims he was "misrepresented" in the article. Not even he has the chutzpah to spin those remarks as positive for pilots.

He's walking them back.

Yet you are doubling down on them. Why is that?

Originally Posted by Rogue24

So 2.00-2.05 would be how much of a raise? Sure isn't some pithy little raise is it?

The points now seem to be made along pilot cost per seat mile, or per seat per hour.

I also am guessing business week did not know what Lee was referring to with 2.00-2.05 so they put a dollar sign in front of it.

Originally Posted by Alan Shore

Having finally read the article with the offending quotes, I have these observations (Caution!! Glass-is-half-full perspective ahead!!!):

“This is really a good story,” ALPA President Lee Moak said Tuesday during a visit to Bloomberg Businessweek in New York, part of a quick tour to assure Wall Street analysts that ALPA’s contract demands won’t prove onerous to airlines. "I almost can’t stand it, it’s so good."

The subject of the article is soaring airline profits. Moak says that he's so happy about profits these days that he "almost can't stand it." Given those profits' potential effects on our negotiating leverage, I find it hard to disagree.

Thanks to the profits, pilots now see themselves as collaborators with management—they increasingly lobby alongside airline executives in Washington. That, says Moak, deepens the working relationships. “All of a sudden, you find yourself on the same side of 95 percent of the issues,” he says.

I'm not sure I agree that we are on the same side of 95% of the issues, but we've certainly been lobbying Washington on some of the same subjects recently. To the extent that this makes us look more valuable in the eyes of management, I have to think that it can only help us at the table.

Delta says it paid nearly $92 million last year in similar (performance-based) incentives. “The employees are now coupled to the airlines,” says Moak, a Delta captain who is stepping down at year’s end after four years as president.

Presumably referring to profit sharing and our monthly goals payouts. The better the Company does, the better we do.

Moak contends that ALPA pilots at the larger carriers enjoy what he calls “mature, good contracts” already. Radical overhauls aren’t in the cards, he says.

I assume, although I do not know, that he is referring to the overall construct of our contract. There are many aspects of our contract that probably don't need much tweaking, leaving our NC able to focus more on simply raising value, e.g., pay rates, vacation pay, retirement, per diem, etc.

Most of the contract talks are likely to center on basic compensation—hourly pay rates and how much carriers pay into pilots’ retirement plans. “There will be a business discussion of pay as it relates to revenue,” Moak says. “You can argue about $2 or $2.05, and that matters to the crew member,” but “you’re working on the margins” on the new contracts, he says.

No idea what the "$2 or $2.05" refers to. An earlier poster suggested that it may be our pilot CASM, which was 1.36 cents in 2013. (If that's the case, why the dollar sign in front of the number?)

With a 4% increase in 2014 (pay + 401(k)) and another 3% in 2015, that will take us to 1.46 cents. Taking that up to 2.05 cents would mean an increase of some 40% which, according to Jerry's calculation, would cost around $800M.

Given a projected profit this year of $4B, I would agree that this could be characterized as "working on the margins."

Again, this is my ever-optimistic possible interpretation of what I read in the article. YMMV...

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver

"Lee" could clarify that and put the speculation on it to bed. I'm just sayin'...

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

Also, ALPA has done nothing to reconcile. ALPA has done nothing but insult and demean. DALPA has funded a "special committee" devoted to destroy the DPA and has called all involved liars. Hardly an attempt at reconciliation Bar. This is why I think Tim is pushing this. You and the Special Committee have called Tim a liar and said he likely hacked his own website due to his incompetence. Evidence is starting to look uncomfortable for ALPA, yet Tim is only demanding that DALPA apologize. DALPA refuses and doubles down on the "liar" tactic with this latest "True Headings".

Carl

Originally Posted by DPA

"Tentative Agreement Voting Opens Today!

Perhaps you woke up this morning and grabbed the USA Today. You may have noticed an article describing the horrors occurring right now in China where government officials dragged a woman out of her home, covered her head, beat her and then carried her to a hospital where they forced an abortion on her, killing her 7 month old unborn child....all for not paying a $6,300 fine for having a second child! The citizens of China and the world are outraged by the actions of a governing body that would trample on its citizens.

ALPA has trampled on you by ignoring your survey inputs. When Reps are asked about the Contract Survey results, they declare the survey was merely "aspirational" in nature."

Originally Posted by Purple Drank

The problem with your spin, Alan (and it is most certainly spin) is that Moak himself apparently claims he was "misrepresented" in the article. Not even he has the chutzpah to spin those remarks as positive for pilots.

He's walking them back.

Yet you are doubling down on them. Why is that?

Originally Posted by Flamer

I read that part as a 5 cent per diem raise would be a win in his eyes and well within the margins.