Ha! That's what I'm trying to get away from.

On second thought, you're senior to me. 80 spends most of his time on reserve playing with trains and sleeping at home. :D

Flies great, fun plane, a real antique..... but you will be a zombie after a 4 or 5 day trip. Ah yes, it is hot as hell, too.

Our E&FA team is good. It is a shame we do not employ it properly. Politics drive our evaluations. We avoid asking the right questions at the opportune time.

We have failed to evaluate the benefit of insourcing. When the Compass question was raised, I was disappointed to learn our MEC's evaluation was based on bankruptcy economic modeling that was irrelevant after the restructuring and merger. We needed new numbers. Resolutions were passed asking for the MEC to perform its job and obtain economic analysis, the Delta reps voted for "no action" while the NWA Reps disagreed along a straight party line vote. Obviously ... politics drove our "no action" on an economic evaluation of insourcing, or recovering our flying.

Questions we need to look at include:
(1) What is the long term effect on our bargaining power as jobs are outsourced?
(2) How much money is lost by Delta pilots, as jobs are outsourced and they wait until later in their career to become "mainline" pilots? (lost longevity)
(3) How much money is lost by Delta pilots due stagnation?
(4) From the union perspective, what are the threats to the relevance and continued viability of ALPA if outsourcing continues, or grows?
(5) What are the risks and threats during future economic downturns?
(6) What can we do to ensure Delta pilots are treated at least equally to other employee groups in corporate transactions?
(7) How has outsourcing harmed ALPA's relevance?

The DPA might just answer a couple of those questions for us. (Note: I am not a DPA supporter and believe our best shot is properly employing ALPA to achieve restoration)

PM sent.

It is like the 320 with a shop vac in the cockpit which travels to Manaus and almost has enough fuel to get back.

tht's awesome add to that it's either recline or slide the seat back, not both ;-)

Cheers
George

Absolutely agreed 100%. VERY good post!

Until the scope pendulem swings the other way, the "dead zoners" and all others will NEVER have the bargaining power needed to get the money they want. A huge amount of our power in the next contract needs to be given toward scope recapture (on all ends, JV and small jet scope).

Prague to the A330
 

A gate agent in Prague mentioned that JFK-PRG will be flown by the A330 this summer. Can anybody corroborate this? Is this the beginning of the shift of European flying to the Bus (with the corresponding shift of the 767ER to the Pacific)?

Maybe this is the payback for those great Luanda layovers...

The shift of 330 flying to Europe started last Spring. The 330 picked up several destinations. The overall plan seems to be to put the 330 or the 767-400 on many of the routes in the summer when loads are high. Then it shifts back to the ER in the fall. The scheduling guru's stated that they expected more of the 767-400 flying to stick year round this year. We will see if that happens. There was also a plan to remove the bunks from all the 767T's this winter and use the 330's on the routes over 12. That has changed and the T's will be getting bunks with the lie flat mod under the floor.
I suspect that the international is never going to be stable. As the markets shift the aircraft will be moving all the time. Europe seems to run on a 4 year up and down cycle so bidding a aircraft for the current trips it flies might be futile.

I thought the same thing when I did the cd on my PC. The navigation aspect isn't anything like it was in the past - even got to the point where I called Delta IT, but the wait times/phone tree/chat room help had me hang up. I finally figured it out, but it shouldn't be this much of a pain. You also have to go in order - no skipping around.

But I did get 39 minutes of pay...sweet.