He's a 2008 hire, he was being sarcastic.

 

Like peanut butter on a mousetrap, I knew it would draw one of the usual suspects out. I'll let go of your chain now.

 

Not supprised that some Captains feel that way. The TAs Captain rates actually topped Delta's 12 year rate with additional raises to year 15 topping out $20/hr better based on 2008 numbers. By the last increase however the Delta 12 year rate would have topped the Airtran 12 year rate but their 15 year rate would still have left them about $7/hr better than Delta's top rate.

Unfortunately to do this the FO rates were left very low and capped out at 12 years. As an example the third year FO rate was about $20/hr less then Delta's 3rd year and the 12 year rate was almost $10 less. By the last increase the 3rd year pay difference grew to $30/hr for 3rd year FOs and $19 for 12 year FOs.

IMO the pilots did the right thing to vote it down for this reason alone but I believe there were some other issues such as scope that were equally important. However considering the stagnation that has resulted I can see how some (especially the more senior Captains) could now have buyers remorse.

I will also point out that the 5 year CA rates were about $17 hour behind Deltas' at DOS and would have been $32/hr behind at the last step increase. If Airtran had made the CAs rates higher throughout the longevity scale they may have been able to divide the pilot group more but as it was it was not a good deal for most of the seniority list. (again IMO)

 

VPR; agreed.

They also wanted to change the way their trip credits worked, which would have killed the guys doing the high speed lines.

 

The good news is that pax in general are none too receptive to this type of behavior anymore. Just last week on our LAX-TPA redeye pax helped subdue & restrain a unruly pax who made multiple threats to 'down the plane'.

 

Delta Airlines will add two flights from Piedmont Triad International Airport to Atlanta in June, bringing the total number of daily departures from PTI to Atlanta to 12, airport officials announced Tuesday.

Officials also announced that Delta will be adding a daily departure from PTI to Cincinnati in June, and plans to upgrade its equipment from PTI to Atlanta in August.

At that time, Delta intends to upgrade two of the departures to Atlanta from regional jets to mainline jets, maintaining the same number of departures, but increasing significantly the number of seats from PTI to Atlanta.

 

Is that Winston-Salem NC?

 

Piedmont Triad International Airport - serving Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem and the surrounding Piedmont area.

 

Is there that much traffic there? Here in Texas we oversell every aircraft and beg for more. We could kick SWA and CAL out of SAT if we flew to more hubs direct.

 

You may get you wish. Same with DFW, but there is no need to get in to that right now....