I get all that and thanks for the recap but other than SEA and the now mostly irrelevant Alaska deal, there seems to be nothing relevant to how and where Delta bases pilots. There's nothing preventing or requiring a pilot base in the PWA that I can find. Hence my point is there's no leverage to cause what may seem like an obvious city to become a base or a threshold for number of operations. We are at the whim of the company so until there's a financial incentive to open or close bases we are stuck with our status quo. BOS and CVG seem like obvious examples to an uninformed line guy. But that's just it, I'm largely uninformed as to the reasoning about when, where, and which aircraft are right for our bases.

Am I missing something that we have that compels them to make changes? The VBs are a no go for me because we have too many unknowns. How many VBs, what amount of flying, which route from which bid packages could be poached, is international the next move, etc. My opinion is that we just have to go with the decisions made and have little, if any, input. The A220 in SLC gives me pause and makes me wonder if we ever get the full truth and if that truth is temporary. My real fear is the unforeseen and unintended consequences.

There’s not much to this sound bite. A Delta hub for scope purposes is defined in the PWA. The only real connection to the definition is with the AS codeshare, which doesn’t exist anymore. “Hub-to-hub” for domestic codeshare is defined in 1.D.

“Pilot bases” are purely at the whim of management. There is no compelling language.

I feel it was a real mistake not even trying VBs, on a trial basis. The software was there, the MCO commuters bid, it was all set. We could have pulled it down after a few months data. Now it will never happen.

Your open questions won’t be answered. There was a chance VBs could have been good, they could have been bad. Because of the persistent pessimism by many pilots, the fear of them bad will preclude even trying them out to see if it was good.

“The company can always open a base whenever they want!”-The company doesn’t want to pay for the MD and move benefits if a new base doesn’t work. The risk/reward for them currently favors deadhead+hotels, otherwise the business case would make them open more bases. Seems VBs with the pull-down provision would have been middle ground: little risk for them, little risk for us.

I don’t think you are missing anything because I don’t think we have anything to compel them to change.

I’m sure the only thing that changes the calculus is when a certain number of delayed/cancelled flights due to no reserves, plus cost of DH’ing folks, plus the thousands of hotel rooms each month in BOS becomes more costly than just opening a pilot base.

I agree. Pilots are always eternal "glass is half empty" pessimists. The opposition to VBs is like the pre-PBS knee-jerk opposition to PBS in any form. Now that we have it, there would be massive complaints if we got rid of it.

The real issue with pulling down with VBs is that the MEC...once again pandering to the "let's make everything a toxic battle with the company" crowd...looked like utter buffoons. For starters we actually had negotiated the concept of VBs with the company. Then we let the company get to the point of actually publishing a VB bid package in MCO...then we pulled out of the agreement? But hey, we looked "tough" didn't we?

Maybe VBs would have been a bad thing by universal consensus. Maybe we all would have ended up saying "what was all the fuss and angst about?" (my opinion, but I could be wrong). We should have either never entertained the idea in the first place, or let it run for a few months.

If I’d had my pension stolen only to see management richly reward themselves for such brilliant strategy I’d probably be suspicious of them ever-after.

Fair enough. Suspicion is warranted. Reneging on a pseudo-deal at the last second, all for political points with a certain faction, was juvenile. I'd have respected the MEC more if we had just said no from the outset.

But that ship has sailed, and life moves on. I don't dwell on it. By the way, I don't commute, so VBs did nothing for me personally.

Yep. There's way more flying in BOS than it would take to justify a domicile...but for what plane(s)? As long as marketing dominates Flt Ops with absolute authority and has the mandate to move everything in a nanosecond to make one penny more, and along with that as long as we have this many (including some very redundant) fleet types, it will be hard to justify the massive AE/MD/new category-freeze waived churn, etc.

Maybe when we get the 5 gates back that will move the calculus a bit in that direction. Also the rumors of the other 7ish gates becoming a reality would probably lock it in for sure, and likely for multipile fleets at that point, but we'll have to stay tuned for that variable.

The biggest fulcrum is the company's overall strategy going forward there. It appears to be very bullish (and long overdue). It can take a long time to flip that switch, but it appears to have been switched and snapped off in the ON position.

Much like SEA/west coast/AK code share abuse where the consensus for many years was that they can do 14 737's a day LA-SEA full of half our pax, but we can't make a penny doing one flight because they own the entire west coast and only they have the uique west coast acumen to solve that impossible equation...until one day we decide to not only dip a toe in but to go in big.

While the two markets aren't absolutely identical in every respect, we're finally planting our flag in BOS it appears for the ultra long term. We may or may not become #1 there, but at the very least we will go from a distant, barely even relevant, anemic #3 to the runaway dominant #2 position, nipping at the heels of JB with the ability to at any time pry out any route crown jewels we want to. That's a very smart stratedgy to counter not only super saver capacity to FL, but a burgeoning attempt to flat out destroy margins over the Atlantic.

BOS is now both a defensive and a very offensive player for DL and will likely lead to a base for some equipment in the coming year(s).

Maybe VB's would have been a good thing. Maybe not. But the company had a year to implement them and couldn't/didn't do it. We let them extend. They led everyone down the BOS 320 path. Then out of the blue, MCO 757. It was the same with the A220 launch....NYC/LAX, then out of the blue, SLC! No warning, no head's up to the pilots that bid these things, no talking to the MEC. How do pilots plan anything with this lack of communication? I respect your opinion, but based on the conversations I have with pilots I fly with, you might be in the minority with the opinion that the MEC looked like buffoons pulling the plug. Almost all I talk to are relieved that the MEC called it off. While your post is supposed to be about the VB's, it reads more of a "Curly-esk" distaste for the current MEC reps. That, for me anyway, took away from any seriousness in your discussion directly related to the VB's. I'm not slamming on you at all. Just pointing out my observation on your post and a couple of points that I thought were pertinent to the topic.

Any time you use words like "Curly-esk" you take away from any seriousness in your discussion. This whole concept of name calling when someone disagrees with you is distasteful and too common. It reads more of "he makes a good point, but I don't like it so I'm going to equate him to someone else and call it a day."

I don't think virtual bases are a good idea, but I think the withdrawal was poorly handled. Waiting until pilots themselves started planning based on it hurt the pilots as well as the company. Letting it go so far after announcement and then canceling it was not just vindictive to the company but hurt our own and caused angst among the pilot group. After letting it go so far they should have said "this is the only month we will allow it, we are canceling the agreement."

I’m not disagreeing with anything you’re saying, but wasn’t the VB thing cancelled last minute because Delta wasn’t willing to work with us with the AM JV? They were violating our scope clause (or on the path to violating it) and wouldn’t agree to terms regarding the whole JV, so DALPA said, if you won’t work with us, we are done working with you.

That’s my recollection, anyway. Im not saying it was right or wrong.