Airline Pilot Central Forums - Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by hockeypilot44 (Post 791072)

I would hardly call an extra 2 MAINLINE flights a day out of DFW anything worth mentioning. This is nothing personal, but I kind of get the impression from your posts that we may open a DFW base. My personal opinion is that will never happen. I do however think MEM and CVG will be closed as bases.

Go up and read what I stated few posts ago. I see a FA base but not a pilot base in the near future. It appears that the pilot base was passed on for the time being. It actually serves as a better base of operations or focus city then MEM does. As much as we are going after AMR they are a rational competitor.

All of DFW's gates are up for new contracts and DAL stands to make out on this if AMR tries to play hard ball. From a third party contact, (Not DAL) we DAL are watching the DFW scene very carefully. There is potential out there. Not like it was, but some high density market expansion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Check Essential (Post 791078)

It was an interesting time in Delta history.
The beginning of the end of the "Delta family". Something called Leadership 7.5 had been going on (brutal cost-cutting to make up for Allen's colossal PanAm blunder).
Another real piece of work named Harry Alger running Flight Ops.
Incompetence and personal vendettas everywhere. The jumpseat was just a pawn in the larger game.

Sounds like a place I know. :rolleyes:

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue vortex (Post 791085)

Regarding the 744 compensation airframes:

Bastian said at a In Command meeting that Boeing has made a $200M cash payment to Delta for 787 deficiencies/delays. I'm sorry but the more 744s rumor is not true. We will not see more of those airframes, ever. Fuel is going back up and it burns 2x a 777 and about 3x what a 787 does. The company is deathy afraid oil is gonna hit $140/bbl again.

If they can fill it, they can make money on it. The CASM is great if it is full, even at 140 dollars per bbl.
Filling it up is the trick, but marketing thinks they can do it and that is why they are sticking around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFW Refugee (Post 791080)

If memory serves, DALPA got the jumpseat with POS '96. (Fecal Fragment, Contract '96). LOTS given...pay, Sunshine/Express...tokens received. Some did well, especially the pre-'72 pilots...sweetheart deal related to their retirements. Additionally, BIG BID was to solve all our/pilots' problems. Didn't quite work out that way. (Two of the three negotiators were SENIOR, and not long for DAL.) :mad:

And as Check said above, it was personal for "So Be It" ra.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waves (Post 791091)

OK, you guys are jogging my most unpleasant memories. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo true.

POS 96.
Management was flailing under Little Napolean RA. Not exactly the union's finest hour either.
DALPA has its issues nowadays but nothing compared to the fallout from POS 96. I still have the famous "Ryan Report".

Quote:

Originally Posted by acl65pilot (Post 791112)

Well hopefully Network can figure out where to put the 747-400s. I think it's a great plane for seasonally heavy routes like TLV or Rome in the summer, South America in the winter, etc.

But, probably to make the most money there needs to be a decent amount of cargo carried too. Both those places I just mentioned are good cargo markets to boot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by buzzpat (Post 790875)

Nothing to add, just wanted to pimp my new avatar.

I want one with "the One" that says DOPE.

Iaflyer;
Correct. The underwing is there the airframe makes money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFW Refugee (Post 791079)

To TRY and be more clear...(WOXOF is normal for me), the company puts more emphasis on being rested for a sim than for a real flight...and pays for it. Why not pay for the real one? Just wondering...

DFW,

I THINK we are on the same page. I was only trying to put Pineapples feet to the fire for saying this....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pineapple Guy (Post 790424)

Waves, actually, that's EXACTLY what most on this board DO dispute. So DON'T do it! It's NOT worth it! I agree there is more to it. That's why I'll ALWAYS support a pilot's right to commute. I just don't want to pay for special accommodations to encourage the practice. That is a cost to the corporation, which ultimately comes out of my paycheck, to be blunt. And I've had enough people take chunks out of my paycheck already![/size][/font]

I responded....

Quote:

Originally Posted by newKnow (Post 790465)

Pine,

Do you feel the same way about the company paying for pilots hotel rooms when they come through ATL or MSP for training? :D

New K (Still here) :rolleyes:

And he came back during halftime of the game yesterday. But, I don't think he has come back since. Must be a Duke fan. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maddog Waddle (Post 790992)

Anyone in the know want to comment on validity of following I heard on my last trip:

1. Goal of DAL is in the neighborhood of 50 777s by 2016

2. 10 more 747-4s coming in next year and a half due to 787 delay..there were other aircraft in this payment for delay but i don't remember the exact numbers

3. One of our DCI carriers, out of the 13 million outstanding DCI carriers, will be opening a DFW base to feed increase in flying out of there. AF may bring back the international flight out of there too and (drumroll)....Delta to ASIA out of DFW? maybe done via DFW to LAX or SEA though.

4. Hiring 400 to start in the fall.

5. Delta has made their order for the 100 seater.

Were you in a coffee shop in AMS when you heard that? Just askin'.. maybe whoever told you was burning tree...

Quote:

Originally Posted by alfaromeo (Post 790966)

Go back and read it again, pal. I never said anything about interest based bargaining, whatever that means. You give some tortured definition, but I doubt that is the real one. There is no real budget established and the size of the pilot contract is not dictated by management, it is determined by economic conditions and the determination of the pilot group. I clearly indicated that I was using a metaphor for real bargaining because pilots that are not experienced in this type of negotiations can have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concepts. I also clearly indicated that the process of establishing the value of the contract and the areas where the value will be used is a parallel process that takes place in one sequence. You might want to actually read what was written before you start flaming like a fool.

Do you agree that there will, at some point, be a finite value in the pilot contract or is it just infinite? If it is infinite then I want a million dollars an hour, I will work for a month and then quit. If it is finite then priorities will have to be established by the pilots and the MEC. If you want to have to have more vacation then you will have to accept less gains in other areas of the contract and so on and so on. Why do you think they have a big contract survey? To establish priorities. Duh.

I did not mention scope, not because it is not important, but as you can see, you can't say the word scope on here without starting a massive food fight. Also, scope is not viewed as a quantifiable item per se, and I can't remember anytime "bargaining credits" were obtained through scope at Delta. Even in Chapter 11 we protected the vast majority of our scope language. Remember, that scope language is what saved us from the US Air takeover and saved about 1500 jobs of our most junior pilots. Quantify that, bub.

Others have quantified scope bargaining credits. You would surely want official sources and it takes some work to obtain those. If you have access, the documents are the LOA 50 Arbitration Transcripts and NWA Zipline October 18, 2004. The numbers as best I recall them were $X00,000,000* for the changes in scope on the Delta side and a $15,000,000 credit for NWA's allowance of 110 50 seat RJ's. What later became Compass was first introduced in these 2004 negotiation of "credits" (their word, not mine).

We agree that D-ALPA played a role in thwarting US Air's hostile takeover attempt. As with any part of our contract, scope gives them the authority to act on behalf of those scope defines as "Delta pilots." But, the principle reasons stated for creditors' decisions to go with a stand alone Delta was:

Quote:

"We had been expecting that the deal would fall through. Initially, we thought it had a 40/60 chance, and we later reduced this to 1/10," said Calyon Securities analyst Ray Neidl in a research note following the collapse of the deal. "We thought that regulators would not let it go through, and now creditors see more value in a stand-alone Delta exiting in April because they thought regulators would drag out the merger process, drastically reducing the value in the merger."

No doubt D-ALPA was fully engaged and could have called down a political storm.

If you felt flamed, that is your impression. Take it as a compliment that your logic is so good that it could have come from a textbook on Distributive (Interest Based) Bargaining to the point someone like me recognized it.

Interest Based Bargaining is a management tool which was designed to leverage irrational behavior by union leadership. Thought up in writings by early management consultants (Ross 1948, Berkowitz 1954, and Atherton 1973) the principle presupposes that union leadership acts politically (euphemism for irrationally) while management thinks entirely economically (cost). Your post outlined the hueristic logic of Interest Based Bargaining, where there is a limited amount of resources which are distributed via the process of negotiations.

My point was that unions should resist adopting the IBB / Distributive model. As we did see in concessionary negotiations it was politically acceptable to trade our foundational beliefs for bargaining credits. No one was thinking of the next generation of Delta pilots, because they were not entirely sure there would be a next generation of Delta pilots. Well, now we are here and we sure wish that our first Captain slot had not been sold for credits in a concessionary IBB exchange. Further, those concessions at NWA and Delta did not avoid bankruptcy, but scope concessions do live on none the less.

Call me crazy if you want. AlphaRomeo, I'll leave you to rust in peace with Proverbs 15:32.

* still working on the LOA 50 documents. A lot of this stuff has dropped off the web over time. It would not be responsible to quote the number I recall without having it in writing first (and I'll be glad not to drag it up unless you really want to push that point.