That was irritating. Who was the CEO of NWA in 2004? The name is right on the tip of my tongue.

Carl

 

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My head has been up and locked in the past, but I do like halibut fishing.

 

Well I guess I'm wrong! Thanks for the correction. I just remember reading "the pilot flying is prohibited (emphasis mine) from moving the flap handle. Heck, it might have been third generation hearsay. I'll stick to what I know to be true rather than "is it true that?"

 

I am happy that I wasn't furloughed. How could I not? However, I am a little disturbed by the flow agreement in that Delta has no say in who is hired through the flow. If the new flow language gives Delta a voice in the hiring process, then I would be more comfortable. I am perfectly willing to move forward without the furlough protection.

But let's think about what that would mean. Delta, then would be in de facto hiring pilots to perform Delta flying at sub par rates. If you're not outraged by that, I don't know what would. We keep allowing them to give away our flying. I'm not an airline industry expert, but we as a pilot group have to reign in the farming out of our flying to the regional carriers.

I think if DAL wants or needs the smaller jets, then let us fly them. We can hire newhires directly into the right seats fulfilling an apprentice position. We essentially will teach them. They do this overseas ... Cathay I believe is one.

 

In terms of the sale of Compass/Mesaba, the key issue is job protections for our most junior pilots. As I see it, there are two outcomes. The first, the flow is canceled and Delta then has to take 6 seats out of some number of 76 seat RJ's. The second, is the flow is maintained. The MEC created a layered economic approach to furlough mitigation. When the first furlough occurred, flow down would trigger and a certain number of jets would have to have the 6 seats removed. As furloughs reached 2001 hires, all 76 seat jets would have to go back to 70 seats or less. I think these layers along with management wanting to keep the positive momentum of the merger moving along prevented any furloughs. Certainly, the current hiring shows they made a good decision.

If option 1 is taken, then Delta could frustrate the loss of six seats in a certain number of jets by growing mainline. At some point, the three for one rule kicks in and they could grow back the number of 76 seat jets. Until that occurs, the most junior pilots would be more vulnerable to furlough. Obviously, adding enough jets to the fleet to trigger 76 seat growth, should point to additional hiring which is furlough protection from our most current junior pilots, but remember you now have a new crop of the most junior pilots and they would now be facing the gun. (we don't want to abandon them either)

If we take option 2, we could maintain the flow protections, but management gets to keep their 76 seat jets. It seems that there might be leverage in this situation for us to generate some type of furlough protection for our yet to be hired pilots and the intrepid airman that follow them. Perhaps we can layer in some economic penalties that protect all pilots on the list, even those yet to be hired. Also, it seems like we should honor the commitment to flow up for those pilot groups just as a matter of integrity.

Just my $.02 cents.

 

In November 2004 or December 2004?

 

I'm no fan of Compass. I hate the fact that they even exist, but I hold no animosity to the pilot group there and I think we do owe them support. In the beginning they were all hired by the NWA hiring department. I honestly don't know how long that continued, but I don't think we are going to somehow damage the Delta Pilot group if they flow up. I would not be interested in maintaining any kind of flow if Delta doesn't have a say in their continuing hiring.

Yeah, I'd love to have all that flying back as well. Call me cynical, but I don't think it's realistic to think we're getting it all back. I do however think this situation gives us some leverage, and I hope we press the company hard to get as much as possible out of it. I also hope we don't allow the company to leave the Compass guys hangin in the breeze.

 

I'm with ACL on this. Unless Hulas is a complete idiot (some would argue that), I doubt he'd sign a deal where he'd face the potential of 300+ training events in the event of a DAL furlough and subsequent flow down.

Without having seen the CPA, I am going to assume that in the event of a flow down, DAL would have to absorb those training costs. So the economic penalty would remain, whether DAL owns CPZ or not. If there's not such provision, can someone give me Hulas's number? I've got some beach-front property in Arizona he might be interested in.

 

For the previous posts and to those who care. Just installed Android 2.2 (Froyo) on my HTC EVO and Icrew still doesn't work correctly. Same "simple accelerator" errors. I had hoped that the new flash would have fixed the problem. It didn't. The Delta side probably needs to upgrade its system before it'll ever work.

 

I was being TIC. Someone was lamenting about the fine Delta just paid for cargo price fixing by NWA between 2004 and 2006. I was just reminding him that NWA's CEO when this began in 2004 was someone familiar to us all.

Carl