My take on Republic is that BB their CEO wants to join an Alliance and sees his future as clouded if they do not. I have frequented MKE and their ops up there are suffering.

Republic is a threat, and the guys I have talked to a giddy at the prospects of bigger jets at the mainlines expense. The MEH and F9 guys not so much but the original Republic pilots seem to think this is akin to winning the lottery.

In 20 years, DAL has virtually never taken "base levels regarding staffing" into account. Airplanes are moved to fit marketing's desires. Pilots are moved to where the aircraft are. We had many bases that ended up with almost 100% of the trips starting and ending with a deadhead, because that particular aircraft no longer served that particular city. Once Flight ops determines that's not likely to change, the base (or that particular category) gets closed. I've seen SEA, IAH, DFW, BOS, PDX, MSY, ORD, and MIA (and I might be forgetting some) closed in my tenure at DAL. In addition to that, there have been categories open/close all the time; none of this took into account the pilot's basing desires or staffing. Bases grow, bases shrink -- that's the nature of the business; for better or worse.

Don't mean to be negative; just relaying what I've seen.

You are dead on with this post.

The part I highlighted is why guys are getting so riled up about TO's first letter. I'm willing to give him some time to see which direction he goes in w/ respect to SCOPE, and the rest of the letter was well done in my opinion. I do think it was a large step up from Moak's lack of communication. I look forward to much more of this.

The problem I have (not necessarily talking about the letter here) is that DALPA as a group cannot seem to make part of our mission statement "All Delta Flying will be done by Delta Pilots" despite numerous resolutions from the LEC's and lots of shrieking by the junior and senior alike (Thanks Carl!)

What is so wrong with us taking a stand on SCOPE like the UCal pilots have? What is wrong with us protecting OUR flying and trying to get back what was OURS? I don't see the political conundrum here why the leadership won't come out and state what we are all thinking - at least not at the DALPA level. I completely get why National has the conflict of interest.

Sailing, Alfa, Slow any thoughts??? To be clear I'm not talking about polling for contract goodies. I'm talking about a defined mission statement or core principle that we declare to the company, Republic, Bombardier, et al that SCOPE will not budge. I realize that to get it back, we are playing the 'What are you willing to give up?' game, but I think most guys just want to hear our leadership say that yes SCOPE is paramount like the UCal guys have.

944Turbo I love the avatar! Did you move out that way or are you just a Leine fan?

BTW kudos to whomever started the "AE will be out on the 7th" rumor. I feel like a kid who wakes up on Christmas to find that Santa isn't coming. I was looking forward to a week's worth of 24/7 in-depth AE analysis. :D

LeineLodge
*Just wants to finally commute by car

So now will come the SWA bubbas reminding us how much more they make than we do. Personally, I wouldn't trade places with their number 1 captain... point is.. it is NOT always about the W2.

And I can still smell the champagne from when Dougie pulled his offer....

All this talk of scope and more 70 / 76 seaters coming. How do you guys think COMAIR going away by half plays into that. Also the purchasing of more 90's and pulling 75 or bigger out of the desert?

I have a buddy that started on Jan. 5th, SWA's first new class in a long time and their network director passed on to them "IF I were Delta I'd be very sacred in Atlanta". Any thoughts??

And they would have to PAY for that too.... or at least they'd better have to.

Orange juice, meet monitor... yeah, I'm soooo afraid of SWA.:rolleyes: What he didn't tell your buddy is that he won't see the left seat for 15 years.