The reason WHY is because SCOPE was relaxed to allow those jobs! Get the flying in house and you can work to improve the pay and ensure all planes are flown by Delta pilots. Once scope allows the planes to go else where we dont have control on the rates and thus just enabled more reasons to not give us payraises.

SCOPE line must be drawn and a permanent cap must be put in place unless we can regain some flying. In which case we get that flying back and still put a permanent cap on RJs.

DELTA PAINT = DELTA PILOTS!!!

 

This is a fallacy. Scope is a bandaid which only slows the bleeding for a short time. Ultimately, every scope clause will fail in a free market competitive system UNLESS you have absolute, complete control and can limit the entry of new participants. And that horse left the barn years ago. It's Econ 101 -- supply and demand. You can scope all you want, force wages as high as you can, and yet with an endless supply of young pilots willing to do exactly what you do, but for 1/3 the cost, and with what is perceived as an equivalent quality, you will lose in the long run.

Education can help take the blinders off the young lads pursuing their dream career, but I suspect that won't dissuade many.

My personal opinion is the free market has gone too far and is now compromising safety. I don't care how good your school is or how good your training is, it is inexcusable (IMHO) to have any pilot in a control seat of an airplane with 50+ passengers when that pilot has less than the minimum requirements to hold an ATP. Not that the ATP certificate magically makes you qualified, but it does mean you've probably scared yourself a few times, you've had a chance to see a few more emergency situations, and might be a little more cautious in the future.

It would also erect a meaningful barrier to entry that is more logical than an arbitrary scope clause. You'll never sell the public on scope, you can sell them on the requirement to have an ATP. That's not the only answer, but its a start, imo.

Mark my words. Delta has been promising a 100-seater ever since we got rid of the DC-9s in 1992. Always had an excuse why they didn't get one. Now we know why. They are very patient, and will buy it just as soon as our scope clause permits.

Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of loosening scope. It definitely delays the inevitable. But, imo, that's all it does. I'm all for keeping it tight and hoping I can finish out my career before 777 rates fall any further, but I'm doubtful we'll hold out that long.

 

As pilots, our responsibilities, in a nutshell, are from getting the metal moved safely from "A" to "B".

As Management, the responsibilities, or goals, are running an efficient business model while maximizing profits.

Management doesn't care HOW we, as pilots, accomplish our responsibilities, they just want it done. Speaking for myself, I really don't care about the details, nor am I interested in, how the management steers the company onto a successful course. I just want to see the company succeed, for obvious reasons.

That being said, I don't think we should sit down at the bargaining table with the mindset of preventing the company from losing money. Our concerns are to improve salaries, QOL, and work rules while the concern of management is to save a few bucks on labor. Make no mistake about it, pilot labor is just another cost to management, nothing more, nothing less.

Management executives are professional negotiators who manipulate people and redirect deals on a day to day basis. They will say what they need to say and do what they need to do to save money and procure a stronger profit. When pilots sit at the bargaining table, across from management, the expectations should be clear-cut, direct, well thought through, and by all means NOT the final offer.

When you buy a car, do you really care about how much profit the car salesman will make?

 

I Wonder how much truth is behind this one:


Air France, Japan Airlines study jv -paper

Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:26am EST

AIR France-KLM
AIRF.PA
€10.09
-0.15-1.47%
6:00am EST

Delta Air Lines, Inc.
DAL.N
$12.69
+0.14+1.12%
12:00am EST

PARIS, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Air France KLM (AIRF.PA) and Japan Airlines 9205.T are considering forming a joint venture to cooperate more closely on flights between France and Japan, according to Monday's La Tribune newspaper.
Air France was not immediately available to comment.
The possible partnership comes two weeks after Japan Airlines decided to remain in the Oneworld Alliance, instead of joining the rival SkyTeam group of which Air France is a member. [ID:nTOE618006]
The newspaper said the partnership would involve Air France and Japan Airlines sharing costs and revenues on a shared price and fare schedule. The arrangement would be similar to how Air France and Delta Airlines (DAL.N) work together on trans-Atlantic flights.
If it went through, the partnership between members of opposing camps would be a first, according to the newspaper. (Editing by David Holmes)

 

IMO, this is the key element. Without it any upward pressure on wages do to a decrease in supply or scope gains will only hasten the arrival of the MPL. Imagine even less experienced "pilots" flying all over the world at cruise. That's a scope issue even the 777 guys will care about.

 

I agree. But, there's a big difference between management and pilots. Management can vote themselves huge bonuses, rape the company and run it into the ground, and then bail out and go elsewhere. They are only limited by their individual talents and ability to sell themselves in the open market place.

We as pilots decided many years ago to abandon that approach. Instead our careers, and our fortunes, are tied to a seniority list, which in turn is tied to the fortunes of an individual company. This made sense during the regulated era as bankruptcies were rare, but since deregulation has been an abysmal failure.

Now, without any type of portable seniority, we are the only (relatively) well paid group tied to our own company. When the company fails, we fail, and get to choose starting all over in the profession we know, or abandoning it and starting all over in a new profession. Two lousy choices. That is why, absent change, DALPA recognizes that for its pilots to be successful, ultimately DAL must be successful. Dubinsky's choke the golden goose philosophy doesn't work in the modern environment.

Furthermore, while we may have become "too big to fail", we have also become "too big to strike". I don't see ANY President ever permitting another nationwide strike by a carrier of our size. The deck is stacked as deeply against labor as I've ever seen it in my 20+ years in the industry. As a result, we have virtually no tools left. We should be expending our resources on changing the RLA so as to level the playing field, but I don't see much movement in that direction. Instead, again as DALPA recognizes, our best hope is to have a wildly profitable company, as that is the best chance that they will throw us a few morsels come contract time.

 

I feel as if my job is done, you can't see it but I'm taking a bow.



I agree, I just would like to find a way to miake scope too expensive. Its naturally happening with 50 seaters and some of the airlines where longevity costs are getting high. And we need to help end the whipsaw. Money is everything and the second DAL can't justify the cost the second we won't need to negotiate a cap. The planes will be parked and the flying transferred and there will be no desire to fight to erode the scope.

And we need to make sure this happens on the top end. People who are living on this seniority list because they want to fly the 777 and 744 are kidding themselves to believe we won't have scope issues on the top end equipment too.

Don't be a cost, be an asset. If they say "can we afford them?" then make sure the answer is "you can't afford not to."

 

I see your point, and I'm not directly advocating a "pay us or burn the place down mentality", but as far as negotiations go, I think the pilot group needs to take a back seat approach attitude with management. Personally, I am not a big fan of management coming to the pilot group for help and assistance to help set up a "grass-roots" campaign whenever the timing suits them, and in turn telling the pilot groups we have nothing else to give when contract time rolls around.

I'm just saying the perception should be that pilots, as an operational cost variable, we should be less involved with the corporate operations, as a whole, during negotiations. I can't see any good coming out of it, as far as our bargaining position goes. Management will always be able to stack the deck in a position which will make them look the weakest, if we decide to play with that deck then we already will be at a disadvantage.

An engine overhaul costs what it costs, and in my limited knowledge, rarely will the company be able to negotiate down the cost of such a operational necessity.

I think FTB, brings up a great point, like it or not, we are limited in the available tools we have to negotiate with management. No matter what your reservations are on the matter, without bargaining tools a negotiating interest has few legs to stand on. The negotiation plan for 2012 should already be in the works if you ask me, and I hope we've analyzed not only our negotiation tools, but also those of our management.

 

Bunch of idiots in quoted in the article:

Ohio State University professor Nawal Taneja, who focuses on the airline industry, said Southwest will use the technique only on its bigger cities that have a sufficient "critical mass" to support banks of incoming and outgoing flights.
"They won't do it in cities where there are only two flights a day, one in the morning, one in the evening," said Taneja, who chairs Ohio State's aviation department in its engineering college. "Then, if you miss the morning flight, you're stuck there for the rest of the day."


Southwest (or any medium sized airline or bigger) doesn't serve ANY city with just two flights a day. Southwest only serves a city if it can do a number of cities with a number of flights.


Another obvious part of the article is that while they re-time flight to connect in their "pilot and FA bases" (I guess SW doesn't have hubs) to make some flights fuller, they "Jordan said the schedule changes are only part of the reason for fewer empty seats on Southwest flights. The carrier's "bags fly free" advertising campaign is obviously paying off, as well as efforts to trim less successful flights."


Amazing management there - some flights get fuller because of schedule adjustments so you trim flights that are less successful. Wow - if only other airlines thought of that.



I'm not trashing SWA - I'm trashing the aviation consultants that think SWA is nirvana. Sure - this hubbing will increase load factors, but it also increases costs. (you need more staff to handle the hub) Also, sometimes at the hub outbound flights get delayed because a flight has a large number of connecting pax and bags.

 

True - I think there are two major reasons why there won't be a strike at DAL or like you say, any other airline other than very small carriers.

First is on the management side: If a union at the airline is getting close to a strike, management will go to the NMB or the President and say, "you can't possibly let the union strike. If they strike, we'll have to stop flying and we'll lose $xxx million a day. We're so highly leveraged that after two days, we'll have to shut down. That will cost thousands of jobs in these states. Do you want dozens of Congressman and Senators calling you telling you to get the strike stopped?" This is doubly so for the major airlines.

Second is on the union's side. The union members (pilots, FAs, mechanics, etc) are highly leveraged as well. What I mean, is that for many of us, our income is very close to our outgoing bills. Mortgage, second mortgage, credit cards, car payments, boat payments, etc mean that most of us cannot take a week much less a month without income. Because of that - most union members will vote yes on the first contract that comes up. Sure - it might not have the raises and work rules they want, but there is no leeway in their budget to weather a strike.