I'll give you two improvements right off the top of my head. 2 CA/2 FOs vs 1 CA/3 FOs on over 12 flights. Also two bunks mandatory vs 1 bunk and a chair. The first created dozens of 744 A positions for North people to move up the chain. The second enabled FOs to get the same quality rest on long flights as a CA. Not to mention your (as in FNWA, not yours personaly) silly rest tradition about the CA always got the middle break.

I don't know where you sit on what fleet, but every North guy I've talked to, and believe me the training center is full of them right now, is glad to be under the new contract. Long Call/Short Call vs what you had before is HUGE to junior guys in category.

Sorry your W-2 went down last year. Seems like everyone's went down but in case you didn't notice, we have a huge recession going on and 2009 saw an almost unprecedented revenue decline for the company. My W-2 and those of my level went up BTW. I went from 2nd to 3rd year pay in 2009. If not for the merger I would have been unemployed along with perhaps a thousand on my side and a thousand on your side.

Keep pining for your old contract. It will make you more miserable. Or embrace the new and look forward like others have suggested. Your choice. PS, your IT was better. Your books were better. Give it time, this is a huge company, we'll get there.

Blame Antitrust, Not the Weather, For Travel Woes - Intelligent Investing - Ideas from Forbes Investor Team - Forbes

Seems like a direct shot at the DOT/DOJ about the NYC slot swap. Think those guys will finally get it? Nah.

Great Article!

Unfortunately I doubt anyone at the DOT/DOJ will "get it", in their omniscient eyes they can do no wrong.


I though RA brought up a good point on CNBC yesterday about how foreign carriers have access to better aircraft financing rates than most domestic carriers. It seems like our government could be a little more supportive to our industry.

http://www.thenational.ae/business/t...-provides-lift

The practice of export credit financing came under scrutiny last year when US and European airlines claimed foreign carriers unfairly benefited from such funding.

An oft-cited case involved Emirates, which raised $414m for three Boeing 777s last year, paying an interest rate of 3.4 per cent through bonds backed by the US Export-Import Bank. After the complaints from US and European airlines, rules governing export credit financing were altered last month by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in a decision that could result in higher interest rates for Middle East carriers.

Last month, Emirates also confirmed it had sold four of its Boeing 777-200ERs in sale-and-leaseback transactions with Veling, an aircraft leasing firm based in Mauritius.

Veling financed the four aircraft with commercial debt from four banks, according to Emirates, including Nedbank Capital of South Africa, DVB Bank of Germany, Mauritius Commercial Bank, and Bank One, also based in Mauritius.

Your numbers are system block hours not pilot block hours. Huge difference. We moved a tremendous number of aircraft into international operations which increases pilot block hours but not system block hours. 3 or 4 pilots staffing a flight is a lot more pilot block hours then system hours.

That's part of that Export Credit argument going on in Europe right now. Emirates and Qatar Air get support from the gov of Airbus and I think we do it too. It's illegal for them to help their respective domestic carriers. Kinda buying the knife for the killer to cut your throat.

Sailing,

You're wrong. The original post was about 2001. On 9/11/2001 the 727 was still going fairly strong. I was a SLC based 727 F/O. Besides SLC, we also had active bases in ATL, LAX, CVG, and IIRC NYC. Yes the drawdown had started, but there were still a bunch of 727s. Additionally, not all the F/Es were ropes, yet.

I think LAX closed first. SLC flew it's last 727 flight in May 2002, IIRC.

I might be misunderstanding this here, but I thought basically foreign carriers had access to better financing rates through the US than domestic carriers were able to get.

All the points you make are good. My income was down 20 percent in 09 working under the Delta contract the entire time. Had their been no merger my income would have been down 20 percent regardless. The incomes of NW pilots would also have been way down under the NWA contract without a merger. In fact its highly likely their would have been furloughs at NW with the near total collapse of the Far East Cargo and Passenger yields.(They have since bounced back and are looking much better).
Another point is the NW contract was long term with very small yearly raises. Since the merger there have been a 5,4,4 raises applied after bringing the NW rates up to Delta rates. There has also been a 1 percent increase in the DC plan. There is another 4 percent raise in 11 months.
I have a lot of friends at NW. They did very well last year and every one will make more then at any time since the chapter 11 filing. One had his best pay year ever but he flew a ton of GS's.
There were lots of differences in the contracts. Each had good points and bad points. One area there was never disagreement on between the two airlines MEC and committees was which contract to base the joint contract around. The Delta contract produced more overall value for the pilots and both sides understood that without dispute. That does not say the NW contract did not have good items. It had lots of great items but so did the Delta contract.

Pay rate comparison. NWA premerger 757/767 CA 142.00 an hour.
Post merger rate current. 181 an hour and 189 in 11 months. I know NWA had some small raises but I don't think the rate today would be over 150 an hour under the NWA contract. It would take a 26 percent raise to bring the NWA rate up to the 189 Delta rate assuming the NWA rate moved up to 150. Total pay raise since the merger will be 33 percent come next Jan. The NW rates I used are approx but should be close. I am sure a NWA pilot can post all their actual rates including contract raises.

Sink........love ya dearly (ok not that way:D) so consider two points (for USAF SOS grads you'll notice that I don't have 3 main points and therefore fail the briefing):eek:

Anyway, thinking about this a lot over the last year or so I look at 2 places where as a group we did better W-2 wise.

One, time and a half over 80 hours. No, I don't want to work 80 hours a month and most months I don't.........BUT, when I did (especially in Asia, I got paid real well). Now, yes I agree that if you live in/near a base you do better greenslipping, but most of "us" don't live near a base. I have zero greenslips and I never commuted to "high time" in the old NWA system either. But, pattern construction or AVL built me an over 80 month a lot. Our friends at FOX news will tell you that time and a half over 80 is socialism because it spreads the money over more of the masses, but I guess thats ok:D

The other thing we had was a 4:15 MINIMUM day, not an average day a MINIMUM day. I can't put my finger on it, but that appears huge in rotation/pattern construction.

Your right, no since looking back. But, if these aren't discussion items for the NEXT contract as you describe.........we're morons.

Ferd

PS how I voted is and why is a whole nudder discussion better done over beers

I think we are talking about the same thing. I know the European carriers are complaining about it too. Might be different programs but the same idea.