Anyone notice how FTB is not putting out a friendly reminder to get your AE bid in? Guess he's really trying to protect that ATL M88 B seat. That has to be it. We know he's not flying.

C'mon FTB. Where's the reminder?

 

Seniority List search makes him a Oct 2007 hire

 

I know its not to scale but my point still stands

 

Wouldn't be the first time anyone forgot to leave their heater at home... I'm sure the Barney Fifes just love giving a "Delta Pilot" hell. Sounds like a misunderstanding followed by an overreaction which got the local press all excited.

 

Let's hope so. I think he's probably an FFDO and either walked through the wrong line or forgot he was carrying.

 

anytime the media can blast an Airline pilot they will. Had this guy been in just about any other field of work it probably wouldnt have made the news.

 

buzzpat, just for some historical perspective, fNW paid EVERY instructor an override. I think it was $400/month. So every instructor got the same benefit on a $$$ basis. On a percentage basis marginally better for lower paying aircraft.

IMO this helped improve our instructor cadre since it eliminated a lot of the dollar chasers, that may or may not have been good instructors. It gave some incentive to those that wanted to be instructors because they liked it and/or were good at instructing but didnt want to be penalized for instructing.

The current DAL incentive really encourages dollar chasers that like to be senior on their equipment rather than junior on something that pays more. IMO this degrades your applicant pool.

I can't see any financial incentive for 747/777 instructors, so maybe its a QOL issue or maybe they like instructing. Whatever their reasoning, a 747 instructor that does not live in MSP is losing money unless he is doing extra "events." He is already at the highest payscale he can hold and ends up having to pay for his own hotel and not getting any per diem even though our only 747 base is DTW.

I think in many cases the FO instructors get hosed to at DAL. If I were to volunteer to be an 330FO instructor, I would get a whopping $9/hour pay raise since I can hold 744FO. At 80 hours/month and after taxes that woudnt cover the hotel/meal expenses for a full month of instructing. I don't know if DAL pays the international override to instructors, but if they don't thats another pay hit.

I wonder how many of the DTW777A live in ATL and how many that don't will volunteer as instructors.

You may not like the fNW way of compensating instructors, but RA was at NW when it was being done that way. It obviously didn't bother him then, not sure why it should bother him now.

DAL is a new airline now and we now have a training center in a base that

a) is not our largest base (its not 2nd largest either)
b) does not have pilot base for every single aircraft type in the fNW fleet.

If they open ATL330 and close MSP330 to adjust staffing there will be no widebody aircraft based where the training center is located. When is the last time that happened at DAL?

 

...and ATL is particularly bad on the Delta brand of Airline Pilot. Over the years, any time a divorce got nasty, somebody got a DUI or ran over someones dog, the press crucified them before doing any investigating. If this guy is an FFDO, I hope the feds go after the local gendarmes for mishandling this and also the press for releasing a photo of him. Definitely not cricket.

 

Nosmo,

I get your points. I've been an instructor. I understand the value of the line guys doing it and have never really bought in to the DGS system.

What I'm saying is that the reality at DAL is they are not going to pay SLI's to commute into any base on a consistent basis. They can man the training centers from within. If you pay for guys to fly into MSP to instruct, then all hell is going to break loose in ATL. You'll have guys, like me, who will want to instruct and commute in from LAX on the 73N. That's a can of worms I can't imagine RA opening. In fact, I'm 100% confident he won't. What will happen is that they'll ask guys who live in MSP on the various equipment there to do the instruction. Or, they'll allow guys to fly in on their own dime and do it. Until we start turning profits in this economy, the other stuff is simply too expensive to absorb.

 

I agree that DAL doesn't want to spend more on instructors than they have to, but Nosmo has a good point - the B747-400 sim is in MSP, but the base is in DTW. Unless the B747-400 instructor lives in MSP, he's taking a hit by commuting to MSP to instruct. If they move the 330 out of MSP as well, same problem.

Not a problem at DAL since ATL had all aircraft based there. I guess if the 765 moves up to NYC, they'll have the same problem (well, mostly since I imagine a lot of ATL guys will commute to NYC for the $$$, leaving a lot of potential instructors in ATL)