this action has nothing to do with whether it’s ALPA or DPA or any other union doing the negotiating. This was an MEC-level move.

Exactly. It was a gift to the company that purely benefitted them. This is their training backlog, created by them. Solving the problem should have been part of section 6. Maybe that would speed up negotiations. But providing an LOA provides good will that’s not reciprocated.

so, why does this make you dislike ALPA and think an in-house union would do better?

Same reason I don’t like politicians. It’s become a popularity contest. It’s become too self serving. Guys abuse ALPA leave and conveniently fly when it’s good for them. It costs too much. It’s not purely fiduciary as it should be. An in-house isn’t concerned with 60,000 other pilots and other pilot groups. APA put out that commercial two weeks ago and laid out the hard truth on their schedules. ALPA would never put something like that. Why? Because they have to worry about the optics over tens of other pilot groups. Unions in general have lost sight of what’s truly important; the labor. MEC decisions like this should never happen while in section six because it 100% goes against the negotiating capital we have. They shouldn’t have that overarching power.

again, this move was not negotiated by ALPA national, but at the MEC level, so how would an in-house union have changed anything?


also, Alaska’s (ALPA) union has also put out YouTube commercials, which contradicts your claims about APA. That’s all done at the MEC level.

You can pull up any ALPA pilots schedule you desire to see.

Do you really think giving a pay raise to new hires solves any company issue? Do you think it was leverage? I mean really?
Section 6: Company, we want to give a raise to new hires. ALPA, what are you going to give us for that??

DALPA: Great, we agree. We’ll make it retroactive back to the amendable date like every other pay raise when our pilot group ratifies a TA.

UAL pays something like 3 hours a day while in training, every day. That’s 90 hours at full year one pay as a NH. DAL pays $5100. If it wasn’t base dependent and all else being equal, that’s enough to sway some people away from DAL. Not to mention going two paychecks while being converted to flight pay. So yes, I do believe giving this LOA is a gift to the company in terms of recruiting. How much? Maybe negligible. May be a lot. I don’t know that. But it’s a temporary fix where a long term solution needed to be placed.

Thats kinda what I was referring to. Should absolutely be tied to main negotiations. I’ve also flown with several “old hats” if you will that only care about the money. I just got here, and while I’m technically still in the “just happy to be here,” phase, the part of me that’s been part of ALPA a long time understands there are a lot of improvements that can be made outside of the dollars.