Alfa,

As with you, I didn't keep up with the DAL issues in your Ch-11 IMHO, NWA management wanted AMFA off the property and there were IAM issues after they were voted off the property that added to the issue. NWA spent a lot of money to exterminate them and they did.


To say the NWA F/As failed is being a bit naive. The DAL F/As compensation may be better but there are other areas of job security that was being threatened. The fact is the NWA F/As pushed the envelope in unknown Ch-11 territory that no one else did. You say the company imposed but there is no determination that such a contract would be enforced after the company left Ch-11 and the F/As could have pushed the issue. You can't make someone come back to work if they don't want to.


In hindsight, it makes sense why NWA settled the F/A contract with improvements than what they were first offered. They also settled the AMFA strike as to not have issues after CH-11. IMHO, they wanted a neat package for exit financing and to be ready for the merger. It doesn't matter now as management can do what they want with the other employee groups with no worries about pushback. Those issues aren't my fight.


I don't want to infere anything from your post but are you suggesting that if under Ch-11, the pilot group should take management's first offer and not be a pain to them in being afraid of having a judge impose a contract?


I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but RA's modus operandi is this, "when the going gets tough, RA will get going". I just saw DS getting on an airplane last week. I have no illusions if things head south again and the ax has to fall, you will see some of the characters we dealt with in CH-11. These guys mean business and the first sound people will hear is their heads hitting the floor.

 

Yep. A complete re-design of the 737 will take more than 10 years. About the best thing they can do is re-open the 757 line and hang GTF's on that airframe. Making the A320 15% more efficient makes it a viable transcon airframe and would allow us to have an all Airbus domestic fleet. That could save us alot of money vs. having a domestic fleet of 5 different types.

 

Delta wishes they would reopen that line

Heck they did that, took out on of the hyd systems and put new motors on it, that sucker would sell like wild fire.

 

168 pilots on the MSP 88B category list for January - projected to have 90 lines. That puts the bottom line holder at about 54%. Awesome

Of course, it's been this way since the base opened last march - and I know that a chunk of those 168 are still in the training/OE pipeline - but enough already! I sit about 70% and only got a line this month because so many senior to me bid reserve to get holidays off.

 

What DCI's honor S2 passes?

 

The MOD lines for the MD90's are way behind schedule. They put the bids out based on the projected fleet times for those airframes. They are at least going to be running 9 months late on average. Rather then rebid everything they are going to carry the surplus.

 

True - but let's look at the other 90 qualified groups:

CVG 49 lines for 67 pilots - 73%
NYC 72 lines for 101 pilots - 71%

And if ATL is 90 qualed by Jan (not sure what their schedule is for that)
377 lines for 513 pilots - 73%

So the MOD line excuse doesn't quite cut it - they could spread some of that flying to MSP to boost the line count a bit

 

There is a big difference between accepting the first offer and not cutting the deal when you have pushed as hard as you can. The NWA flight attendants had a much larger claim in the deals they voted down. When their contract was rejected the judge ruled they had no right to the negotiated claim. It was only when they went running back at the last minute that they got anything at all. So, their final deal was WORSE than the ones they rejected when you factor in the claim.

As for what may happen in the future, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have seen it all before. CEO's come and CEO's go, at some point we will have a new CEO. I like RA and think he is a good executive, but I am not going to curl up in a fetal ball when he goes. Life will continue. I know some of you guys think we had some cake walk through CH 11, but look further up the thread and see what they were asking for. They came after everything, we didn't accept the first offer, we didn't accept the 50th offer. At some point you are done negotiating and you either cut the deal or wait for the next shoe to drop. Sometimes that can work in your favor and sometimes not.

The biggest fallacy I hear is "Vote No, It will always get better." In fact, most of the time it gets worse. In CH11 the company has a large array of tools at their disposal. One of our tools that DALPA wielded with high effectiveness was to scare the poop out of the UCC that we would shut the place down if our contract was rejected. At that time no one knew the answer to that question. After the NWA flight attendants got an injunction, we knew the answer and it was not good for labor. So those flight attendants took away that tool for us to use in the future if it is ever needed. Far from being heroes, I view them as goats who did not know how to cut a deal and screwed the rest of us forever.

 

This isn't second hand info. He said it to the captain as I was sitting there loading the FMS listening to the captain give him a serious tongue lashing.

 

OK, but I still don't get it in the context of the response you reported. All the managers with contracts save one are gone, their pension plan is the hard frozen non-contract plan, and their non-qualified plan was rejected.