I wouldn't consider Yosemite right now. There's a fire burning in Madera that has the valley partially obscured, plus it has been an incredibly dry 3 years. It's best done when the valley is smoke free and the waterfalls are running heavily.

Yellowstone in August is pretty awesome for kids because of the amount of wildlife viewing available. Hayden Valley will still have lots of bison and elk that are easy to see. Up in the northeast corner of the park the grizzlies are moving pretty well. If they like this kind of stuff you can join horse tours near Roosevelt lodge, and there are plenty of waterfalls still moving adequately for a show. They'll get a kick out of the geysers (and their smell) as well.

If you have military affiliation make sure you bring ID. Most cards get you in for free. Also, if you're driving at dusk or just after dark, be careful. The deer play a game of "try to wreck the tourist cars" on the 2 lane park roads with limited sight distances. Might want to consider "walk away" protection for your rental car.

That's some creative accounting. Look around the industry. I was here for all of that. My thought is DPA is a couple people with a personal agenda against ALPA/DALPA that tried to take advantage of the dissatisfaction with the state of the industry at the time. What legacy has done better since 2004? A buddy in the same seat at United had to get a 45 percent raise to make it to our rates. I want a whole lot in the next contract and I'll put my money with the guys who navigated the decade better than any comparable group. Openers are approaching and DPA to me is a stupid wasteful distraction at this point.

DPA actually agreed with you on the last point and even put it in print. Sad they did not heed their own advise.

Not really. $100/hour pay cut in buying power @ 1000 hours of credit per year = $100K. $100/hour cut is just about exactly where the buying power of my current rate is. I'd say that's a pretty good average over each of the past 10 years. And that's not even accounting for loss of pension benefit and other significant cost increases like cost of medical. Of course, that's somewhat offset by profit sharing... which is a relatively small drop in the bucket compared to all of the above. So I'll bet $100K/pilot/year is probably not too far off.

And BTW, I'm not suggesting we be repaid for that. I consider the approx. $1 million I've contributed so far to Delta's recovery to be water under the bridge at this point. Pretty generous contribution, don't you think? All I'm suggesting is that things should be made right going forward. In light of the restructuring of our industry (which should facilitate more consistent profits and less dramatic cycles going forward) and the record profits our company is enjoying, I think I'm being extremely generous and more than reasonable.


No doubt we're the "prettiest put in an ugly litter." But I wouldn't put my money with the guys who have accepted bankruptcy as a reset, just because they came out on top of all the other losers.



I don't really disagree with you on that. I don't think DPA is going to ever get a vote, so I'd like to see us at least try to fix ALPA and get focused on restoring this profession instead of accepting a lower value as the standard. A monumental task for sure, but I'm not one to give up. A good start would be recalling Lee Moak after the stupid stuff he said in that Bloomberg article. Next step would be recalling my reps because they supported what he said.

Save Yellowstone for the winter, it's an experience like no other. The whole town and park traffic is converted to all snowmobiles, unbelievably awesome.

Check your PM and give me a call.

Well the latest is they are only parking 2 Whales. Keeping one for charters and keeping one for a spare. Better than parking 4 total. :)

Just read that.... I like it!

Save the whales!

I've been doing FCA (glacier park) and BZN (north yellowstone) this month- the smoke is bad there as well.

I'll suggest Zion and Bryce if you've never been there. 2 days at each should be enough. The drive from LAS up to that area is absolutely amazing.