Exactly. I'm still trying to understand the DPA argument that DALPA has an interest in not securing the best pay and benefits for its members.

Those would be accurate statements If not for one significant fact.

No one at Herndon is compensated on the level we are on the line. They are all well above, including many on the clerical staff.

IF, no national union officer made more than the highest ALPA paid air carrier line pilot rates for the seat they hold or the equivalent plus 10%, then a true hypothesis.

When their compensation and benefits are aligned and similar to ours, ours will progress at a better rate.


Simple fact.

Hi everyone. Any current Delta guys have a minute to send me a PM? I have a couple career questions I'd like to ask. Thanks!

So your "simple fact" contends that ALPA national wants us to have substandard contracts? I fail to see the logic. Even if they all made as much as you and others contend, wouldn't they be interested in the richest contracts possible so as to extend the so-called gravy train even more?

Fact? Hardly. Complete conjecture and hyperbole? Absolutely.

Yeah no kidding. I have no idea where these guys come up with this nonsense. Of course carrying out that "logic": if we all took paycuts, then the ALPA bubbas would make even more.

Simple and completely irrelevant.

The staff in Herndon are not airline pilots. Why should they be paid based on your arbitrary metric for workers in an entirely different profession?

At this point Lee Moak does not want his job for the next term. I would guess part of the reason why is that he has a new skill set which pays better than "pilot."

Among we pilots, several high level administrative braniacs have returned to line flying because line flying pays more. More time at home, more greenslip opportunities, they wonder why they ever decided to serve when the cost of service was almost $100,000 from what they enjoy flying.

We have several "volunteers" here on this web board and some who are considering service. The truth is, whether one aspires to greater things, or wants to fly, ALPA work is humble service.

IMHO the DPA, would confront this reality very quickly. If someone would have to be an idiot or a zealot to perform that work for that pay, then ....

Sorry to pick on you, Alan... I know a couple of others have made the same point but I just happened to read yours last so you get to be the lucky one. :)

I don't think anyone has made the argument that DALPA is motivated to achieve less than THEY THINK is possible. The difference of opinion is in terms of what is possible or not.

Clearly, the prevailing opinion within DALPA over the past 10 years has been that bankruptcy was a reset and that our profession (and by extension, our careers) are simply less valuable in the marketplace today than they were for decades prior to bankruptcy and there's nothing we can do to change that. Based on this assumption (which I think is completely wrong), they have not set an objective to restore the value of our profession but rather only to try and get incremental, "reasonable" gains "at every opportunity" to the new baseline that was established via bankruptcy. The Rich Harwood's of the world have prevailed with a bean counter mentality that clearly favors management's overemphasis on cost control and completely dismisses the long established value of our profession.

I also think that is a big source of the apathy and disunity we are experiencing. I have no doubt it's a big part of the reason why DPA was able to get thousands of pilots to send in a card.

And that is the crux of the problem I have with DALPA. No objective to restore our profession and our careers. Their only apparent objective is to get some vague level of "improvements," which could be satisfied by ANY improvement no matter how small. That, my friend, is a weak and ineffective objective.

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No worries. It's all good. :D

Then perhaps I misunderstood. I took the post that I quoted to mean that ALPA National is not motivated to help us achieve all that we can.

No, I don't think you misunderstood. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to which post you were responding.

I wasn't talking about the ALPA National angle of this. I was mainly talking about DALPA and I was making the point that their lack of a restorative objective isn't based on them being motivated to achieve less but rather their belief that restoration isn't possible. Don't get me wrong, this belief they have RESULTS in a lack of motivation to achieve restoration (why waste energy try to do something you think is impossible?), but I don't think it's because they have some burning desire to hold us down. Our leadership (listening to guys like Harwood, White, Hanson, etc.) is simply misguided. That's the problem I'm trying to highlight.