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Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?

Old 08-18-2014 | 07:40 AM
  #166071  
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Originally Posted by satchip
Who cares? They're both irrelevant.
That.... while very very mean, is also very true.

6-6 and a Liberty Bowl and I'm a very happy man this year. The REAL UT is replacing both O and D lines... not gonna be a good year in Knoxville.
Old 08-18-2014 | 07:47 AM
  #166072  
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Originally Posted by Bucking Bar
This should not be a surprise. Delta's labor leaders have (mostly) been pragmatic about labor costs, watching the others fight battles to the death and then walking into open markets, or buying what's left and incorporating it into the Delta network. In years past some labor leaders have levelled pointed criticism at Delta - ALPA for being too management focused. Yet, which airline do so many pilots aspire to work for? Which airline did at least half of us apply to and make our first choice?
.
Bar, perhaps its because others fought those battles, DL and its employees are able to enjoy what they currently have, and despite all that we still went through BK.
Old 08-18-2014 | 07:49 AM
  #166073  
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Originally Posted by Purple Drank
Fixed it for you
Sure, let's follow the money. Let's have a comparison between the results that DPA attorney managed at USAPA and what the namby,pamby DALPA was able to achieve. I mean USAPA let out press release after press release attacking their company and their management. They fought each other in court case after court case. They even launched not one, but two full page USA Today ads, which is the Hydrogen-Bomb Doomsday device of the webboard people like you.

Let's compare the results for their A-330 Captains and a Delta 767-400/A330 Captain, including merger stock and defined contributions.




So the LCC guys all followed the advice of you and Carl and the rest of the DPA crowd and what did it get them? They lost basically $80,000 per year in compensation compared to a Delta Captain. So, yes, please follow the money.

We will not even mention that US Air got out of bankruptcy 2 years before Delta did, and merged 3 years before Delta did, so they should have had a head start on restoring their pay and benefits.

This is where we have the conflict between rhetoric and results. You think the LCC guys are tough and strong because they attack management, they attack each other, and they generally foam at the mouth in an endless fashion.

Meanwhile, the weak, wimpy, mealy mouthed Delta pilot could have lived off the same take home pay as the LCC Captain and then paid off his house and his car with the extra money he got. What a tool, what a wimp, what an idiot. Didn't he know how making money is for fools and weaklings and that there is tremendous value in crapping on your management and each other 24/7?

Yes, we should all learn from this tremendous example of how to operate.
Old 08-18-2014 | 08:02 AM
  #166074  
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Originally Posted by Alan Shore
And remember when you were all up in arms when the Company said the same thing about the other employees?
No, I don't. What the heck are you talking about?
Old 08-18-2014 | 08:03 AM
  #166075  
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Originally Posted by iceman49
Bar, perhaps its because others fought those battles, DL and its employees are able to enjoy what they currently have, and despite all that we still went through BK.
Yes and no. The Delta pilots have held up their end of the house plenty of times and raised the bar for the profession. Not that anyone has seen true restoration, but which airline do you think is achieving gains faster than we are?

Once the PBGC was created, the die was cast and a bunch of consulting firms jumped in to help corporations fit the mold. Consider,
Originally Posted by NY Times
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is taking action to prevent American Airlines from using bankruptcy protection to shed its pension plans; files liens of $91 million against some of the airlines' assets; agency would bear a $9 billion loss if American terminated all four of its employees' plans, which cover 130,000 people; American's parent company, AMR Corporation, contributed just $6.5 million to the pension plans in January, far short of the $97 million contribution it would need to make if the company were not in bankruptcy
So, if I understand American management shed $9,000,000,000.00 in liabilities at a hoped for cost of $6,500,000. They played the game for a recovery of 1,385%.

Frankly neither morality nor a labor union is going to be able to stop business like that from getting done if the US law allows it.
Old 08-18-2014 | 08:30 AM
  #166076  
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Originally Posted by alfaromeo
Sure, let's follow the money. Let's have a comparison between the results that DPA attorney managed at USAPA and what the namby,pamby DALPA was able to achieve. I mean USAPA let out press release after press release attacking their company and their management. They fought each other in court case after court case. They even launched not one, but two full page USA Today ads, which is the Hydrogen-Bomb Doomsday device of the webboard people like you.

Let's compare the results for their A-330 Captains and a Delta 767-400/A330 Captain, including merger stock and defined contributions.




So the LCC guys all followed the advice of you and Carl and the rest of the DPA crowd and what did it get them? They lost basically $80,000 per year in compensation compared to a Delta Captain. So, yes, please follow the money.

We will not even mention that US Air got out of bankruptcy 2 years before Delta did, and merged 3 years before Delta did, so they should have had a head start on restoring their pay and benefits.

This is where we have the conflict between rhetoric and results. You think the LCC guys are tough and strong because they attack management, they attack each other, and they generally foam at the mouth in an endless fashion.

Meanwhile, the weak, wimpy, mealy mouthed Delta pilot could have lived off the same take home pay as the LCC Captain and then paid off his house and his car with the extra money he got. What a tool, what a wimp, what an idiot. Didn't he know how making money is for fools and weaklings and that there is tremendous value in crapping on your management and each other 24/7?

Yes, we should all learn from this tremendous example of how to operate.
Excellent comparison. But you do know it will fall on eyes that choose not to see. Eyes that would be much happier just to have the satisfaction of punching the company in the mouth, even if the blowback is far more damaging to themselves.

I'd much rather drive an Alfa Romeo than drink a glass of purple drank anyday.

You know the other thing you could have done would have been to show a ROIC on that $80,000/year at a meager return of 5%/year... compounded... and just how much more THAT would have been. But I'm sorry, I forget, time/value of that money is mythical. nevermind. (It would have yielded an additional $144K... if my math is right)
Old 08-18-2014 | 08:32 AM
  #166077  
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Originally Posted by alfaromeo
Sure, let's follow the money. Let's have a comparison between the results that DPA attorney managed at USAPA and what the namby,pamby DALPA was able to achieve. I mean USAPA let out press release after press release attacking their company and their management. They fought each other in court case after court case. They even launched not one, but two full page USA Today ads, which is the Hydrogen-Bomb Doomsday device of the webboard people like you.

Let's compare the results for their A-330 Captains and a Delta 767-400/A330 Captain, including merger stock and defined contributions.




So the LCC guys all followed the advice of you and Carl and the rest of the DPA crowd and what did it get them? They lost basically $80,000 per year in compensation compared to a Delta Captain. So, yes, please follow the money.

We will not even mention that US Air got out of bankruptcy 2 years before Delta did, and merged 3 years before Delta did, so they should have had a head start on restoring their pay and benefits.

This is where we have the conflict between rhetoric and results. You think the LCC guys are tough and strong because they attack management, they attack each other, and they generally foam at the mouth in an endless fashion.

Meanwhile, the weak, wimpy, mealy mouthed Delta pilot could have lived off the same take home pay as the LCC Captain and then paid off his house and his car with the extra money he got. What a tool, what a wimp, what an idiot. Didn't he know how making money is for fools and weaklings and that there is tremendous value in crapping on your management and each other 24/7?

Yes, we should all learn from this tremendous example of how to operate.
So, how come at Endeavor we follow the ALPA way, and we are really hurting? Or is every company situation different?
Old 08-18-2014 | 08:41 AM
  #166078  
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Originally Posted by Mesabah
So, how come at Endeavor we follow the ALPA way, and we are really hurting? Or is every company situation different?
You drew a short straw. Sorry. You are in a part of this industry that has a huge deck of cards stacked against it. (You) want to be here, and everybody involved with the industry knows it. In a way, not much different from the FOs at mainline that have been in the right seat for 15 years. It is all about timing, and there is nothing you can really do to affect it in any meaningful way. Bob Dylan said it though... The times they are a'changin'. ANother great quote comes to mind too. "Get busy living, or get busy dying".

But... let's say that you choose a different path at Endeavor. What can you do that will garner a better position?
Old 08-18-2014 | 08:48 AM
  #166079  
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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...

Alan,

Kind of a surprising post from you. Normally you are much more factually and less interpretive. Nevertheless, you are entitled to your opinion as is every other poster.

I must say that the above post strikes me more as coming from a "90" full vice "glass is half full" perspective. It almost appears as if you are attempting to carry Moak's water here vice neutrally interpreting it.

I am not a big Moak supporter or detractor, he has done some good and some not so good.

My personal opinion on this whole interview is that Lee got a little carried away and clearly screwed up. He represents labor, for now at least. To the best of my memory he has no intention to ever run for ALPA National . Lee obviously said some things that he shouldn't have. He is getting ahead of himself, he is not yet in his post ALPA Govt or Business position.



Just put yourself in managements position. Do you thin think the result of this interview will be a higher or lower opener on C2015?



Scoop
Old 08-18-2014 | 09:01 AM
  #166080  
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Originally Posted by Scoop
Alan,

Kind of a surprising post from you. Normally you are much more factually and less interpretive. Nevertheless, you are entitled to your opinion as is every other poster.

I must say that the above post strikes me more as coming from a "90" full vice "glass is half full" perspective. It almost appears as if you are attempting to carry Moak's water here vice neutrally interpreting it.

I am not a big Moak supporter or detractor, he has done some good and some not so good.

My personal opinion on this whole interview is that Lee got a little carried away and clearly screwed up. He represents labor, for now at least. To the best of my memory he has no intention to ever run for ALPA National . Lee obviously said some things that he shouldn't have. He is getting ahead of himself, he is not yet in his post ALPA Govt or Business position.



Just put yourself in managements position. Do you thin think the result of this interview will be a higher or lower opener on C2015?



Scoop
Do you think a divided pilot group (DPA) will result in a higher or lower opener from management.
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