I just re-read the first post on this topic, and saw that it is Virgin Atlantic, not Virgin America. I'm a little relieved, as I was envisioning this as an attack on domestic narrowbody flying, especially out west.

Still not sure about a JV with Virgin Atlantic. I guess the idea would be to gain more of a presence in London???

Bloomberg reported it this morning.

Air France, Delta Consider Bid for Virgin Atlantic, Times Says - Bloomberg

It is to compete against the AA/BA JV that was approved. It's been in the news for awhile, but not quite like it was worded this morning. I was thinking to see a JV, but when we hire Goldman there is more than a JV going on.

Most scope protection is not worth the paper it's written on, unfortunately we seem to be always in a position of trying to decide what works or does not work...what may be good now, may go poorly against us in the future.
All Delta flying should be done by Delta pilots, how much are we going to lose with a VA JV.

I've been saying this for years, and I think ACL has as well,....we're ALL gonna be Air France one day. Which, I suppose, means we can break out the berets and stop taking showers.

I've said it as well and I think with the pace of JV's and the globalization of our industry, we would be better off to be employed by SkyTeam and have ALL pilots that fly JV flights be on one list and under one contract.

The biggest hurdle to that is foreign ownership rules which will be gone within the decade. Once they are gone it's a matter of a few regulation changes in regards to licensing and some agreements with other governments on right to work and we could all be on one list and under one contract.

Engine Failure?
 

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We have transatlantic JV scope protections with the AF/KLM pilots, and as such it would take 3-4 different courts to overturn the JV protections we enjoy currently.

It actually would give us a good bit of leverage if V-Atl. came into skyteam and DL/AFKL wanted them in on the trans-atlantic JV. time will tell.

I'm with Buzzpat: berets, no showers, and good red wine for DAL pilots in 10 years! I agree that foreign ownership is a big question mark down the road, but its not the AF/KL/DL pilots being under one contract that i worry about (not that I think that will happen anyway (the AF pilots have more than one union at the present), its the operation of "Skyteam" flights by "asia/africa/mid-east" crews working for 1/10th of DL/KL/AF wages that worries me more.

Bravo Zulu to the pilots. (or "...to the pilot." as the media would say:mad:)

Alors!, You guys are looking too far ahead:

The 800 pound gorilla is the integration with Alitalia currently underway.
2 possibilities:

1. Alitalia transatlantic flying is considered as a share of the current AF-KLM/DAL JV.
   This would be good for DAL pilots because any transatlantic flying done by Alitalia would be added to the AFKLM "pot" and would be matched 1-for-1 by additional Delta flying.
   
2. Alitalia transatlantic flying is added to current AF-KLM/DAL JV.
   This would be bad for DAL pilots because the 50%-50% ratio would be skewed to reflect additional flying on the part of AF-KLM-Alitalia. Delta pilots would probably maintain status quo in terms of Atlantic ASMs, but this would be ceding "share" in the transatlantic flying.

The outcome of the Alitalia integration would probably spell out how Delta pilots fare in the upcoming Virgina Australia/DAL JV. A route where I'm afraid we are past the 50%-50% balance in favor of VAustralia....

Cheers
George