The anger is the fact that the union types continue to have their head in the sand in barely even giving this lip service. It continues to be ignored as a goal to reel this junk in.

 

That's right. And the last contract when we were OUT of BK. So why the HECK is still in there??!!!

 

Actually, since the RJs cant be reduced once added, my question was if they add the -90s before retiring the -9s how many RJs can they add - which would then not be reduceable?

 

Because the single opportunity to address outstanding issues would have been for the DAL and NW pilots to agree on a SLI voluntarily, and hold it as leverage early on in the merger process. I'm not saying it could have been done, because the SLI piece is almost unsurmountable without arbitration. But once it became pretty obvious to management that we were really not going to stop this thing, and only wanted a payout, BUT could not work together, they gave us the existing contract, plus equity, and some raises, and we jumped on it. I'm not really interested in who is to blame, because, let's be honest: we probably could never have done a voluntary SLI in a split second, and jointly turned against management.

So there went our one significant post-bankruptcy chance of cleaning up the contract.

Are you really confused as to why we're still under a POS contract, or are you just venting?

 

To add to your question, what if, after bringing on the MD90's we quickly sign agreements for additional 76 seater DCI flying. Then, a couple months later we decide to park all of the DC9s. It is my understanding that this new, higher, limit on 76 seaters is the benchmark moving forward and that if we shrunk the mainline a/c numbers that DCI can continue to fly the additional 76 seaters. Is this true?

 

Signing of the agreements does not matter. It would be the delivery of the jets. Remember that grievance settlement 09-01 that stated that the company will now go by our interpretation.

In an short answer, yes, if the company keeps all of the 9's adds the 49 confirmed 90's they can take delivery on a 3-1 ratio 76 seat jets to the allowable limit, then park the 9's with no consequence to the amount of 76 seat jets. This is not something new.

 

So what I hear you saying is that:

The Vols are great.
Carl is reasonable.
ALPA is fallable

 

FWIW, a thread on the regional forum mentions Republic announced some significant hiring and upgrades.

 

The short answer is zero

Right now we're expecting about 30 MD-90s in the next 18 months. If all those jets are growth aircraft, with zero aircraft retirements and no other mainline aircraft arriving, the mainline fleet would be ~758. Still 9 short of what's required to add any additional 76-seat jets.

 

The short answer is that I'm just venting. But I also conutinue to reiterate the point because I feel a frightening number of our pilots don't even know that clause is in our contract.