Michael70776

Changing the pay system will not change the amount of money Delta can spend on the pilots. The amount spent on the pilot contract will be the same no matter what pay system we have. So how are you going to swith to longevity pay without screwing some pilots while rewarding others?

Add to that, the current system is in the best interest of most pilots. Pick what is important to you....chase quality of life or chase the money.

acl65pilot

Seniority is bidding power, and longevity is buying power. Any airline that has had a merger that used anything besides category/status and or furloughs has this.

Guys that bypass furlough will enjoy better biding power with their seniority that they keep, but may have less longevity than a guy below them, so they get paid at a lower hourly rate for the same work. That is not the hurdle.

*Not supporting this type of system, but pointing out a fact.

DeadHead

There is probably more than a couple of different compensation revamp options available to the pilot group that would be beneficial to some and detrimental to others.
Longevity pay would be make some happy and make others upset. While I do agree that the system now has become a little over-complicated with so many different aircraft types and categories, the bottom line is it would be impractical, if not impossible, to create a system that will be beneficial everybody.

The point is it is impractical to think that we will be able to devise a compensation program that will be beneficial to everyone. Not saying we shouldn't be considering ways to improve compensation, but I think venturing on a project such as this will require a significant amount of collateral contract changes that we may not anticipate.
Managements is extremely versed in it's ability to work a PWA into a way that is beneficial to them and detrimental to us.
Face the facts they are better at it then we are.
Coming into a the first few profitable quarters after a 10 year stint of ongoing losses, while still working under a bankruptcy contract, begs at least one question in my mind:
How "creative" do we really want to get approaching the 2012 contract?

1234

I am not endorsing or opposing a new pay system, however if we were to switch, the company would simply determine what the internal rate of return would be on the investment to switch with the costs being additional training in the near term. You can't tell me that for the company to realize a 15 to 20 percent reduction in training (into perpetuity) they would not be interested. That would be a significant reduction and if it is the case and we made the switch, I would expect that we should share the benefit.

hockeypilot44

What airline code is RS on travelnet? What priority does RS travel on an ASA flight? I know I'm an S3C on an ASA flight.

Thrust Normal

It's Regional Elite Services. I thought they traveled S3C also. But I'm not sure on that.

Jabberwock

What is the difference between a Authorized Personal Drop and a Personal Drop? From section 23, it is not real clear what the "authorized" means. The benefit is that the APD is run before the APD and the limit is one per year, with more than 25% reserve coverage.

Is my read on this correct?

tsquare

... and I get dragged right back in...

The way I would implement a longevity system would be to take the lowest paid captain DC9 at 12 year.. and find an acceptable raise from that point. That becomes year 1 of the longevity scale. Every year after that is a (3%) raise until year 40. How would anybody get "screwed" there?

OK.. why do we need make a choice about choosing money or QOL. That is defeatist. You essentially are saying that we cannot have both, so we have to make a choice. Really? I don't buy that because there are no more benefits of real consequence so the remaining two have to be paired against each other? Like I have said, I know I am tilting at windmills because there won't be any original thinking on how this is all done. $500 for the whale.. they deserve it!

Can't never could do anything...

Bucking Bar

I think the debate is more "could" versus "should" than can't. Each fleet and base is its own little fiefdom where somebody gets to be senior. Removing the pay distinctions in our pilot group nullifies the advantage of seniority for the senior. It also would result in greater stagnation on the junior equipment, since there would be every financial incentive to camp out rather than upgrade.

My solution is the opposite. We should have separate categories for paint jobs, winglets, galley configurations, engine dash numbers, lav floor cover color and anything else we can think of. That way we all can be senior on something

flyallnite

An APD is a once per year (renews in your hire date month) ability to drop up to a 4 day trip (Not long ago DL had almost no trips longer than 4 days in any category). You don't get paid for it if you drop it. Here's the important part: With an APD, you can't pick up anything over the days that you've dropped. So let's say you dropped a 4 day trip on the 4th - the 7th. You want to pick up a trip that departs the evening of the 7th. You can't.

The idea behind the APD was that with the reserve days almost always capped, if something important is going on at home and you really need the days off, you can use an APD to get that. If it falls over a holiday, like Jan 1, then Skeds can decline to drop the trip even if coverage is good enough for an APD.

That said, if you have a medical issue or treatment you need to take care of, a family event such as a graduation or marriage, you can always ask your C.P. for the time off, he has the ability to call skeds and have them drop a trip. If you go that route, don't be surprised if he asks you to white slip something else or pick up another trip in the month especially if your category is short of pilots. I don't know why some C.P.'s ask that, but they often do. Sometimes C.P.'s will cover those sorts of drops with your vacation time, so you kind of get paid (vacation pay) -- if you don't want that to happen, make sure you communicate that to them.

You can check the contract for more details about the APD. It's not as useful as it once was, and it will probably cost you money to use. But basically it's there if something comes up and you don't have any other way of being off work... Cough Cough.

If you have a family emergency, ie: a death, your C.P. will authorize up to 4 paid days off, S-1 passes, to deal with that issue, all you need to do in that case is make a phone call.