Let's see 12 year DC 9 fo under your old contract $85.36 x 75 hours = $6402. 12 year fo under the 2008 rates of the joint contract $94.29 x 70 hours = $6600. Yeah I can see how you would feel screwed.

Excellent post newK and spot on.

FWIW, many of us northies' biggest problem is what has happened to our operation. We were almost always at the top of the list for ontime arrivals, and exceedingly operationally efficient. We were always in the upper middle of customer satisfaction and won first place nearly every year from customers for our website. Now we are the most complained about airline by our customers and near the bottom for ontime arrivals and other metrics.

The above aren't complaints...they are simply facts. Now when you add to this the fact that many north managers were removed from their positions for trying to add our expertise to the operation, it doesn't exactly create a high morale situation.

Don't know how many northies agree with my analysis, but I know it's the feelings of many.

Carl

Carl, we agree again! I have been embarassed now for many years about the DAL operation. It used to be top notch; in fact DAL was voted #1 for 17 years in a row when I got hired. A few years later, in came our first round of idiotic cuts under the "7.5 program" and its been downhill ever since.

I really hope things turn around, as I'm sure you do to. And I certainly agree that the "not invented here" is sometimes used but shouldn't be.

There was a pool of money that was distributed to the NWA pilots based on an union agreement. Some do get more (target group) but the majority of the NWA pilots get 2%, which goes up minimally each year until 2013, and then all will be the same. Those outside the targeting do not get 8%, but rather 2%.

I'm amazed at how poorly Delta handles irregular ops. It is amazing to me that we have Delta pilots finding their own rooms at layovers, sitting in airports for hours on end with no future schedules. I had a plane break at an outstation recently. I knew the aircraft would be delayed for at least 6-7 hours. Operation control puts the delay at 4:45 when we talked to them. I feel like they did it just to keep us from getting hotel rooms. They then would push the delay back every few hours resulting in over 8 hours in the airport. Things like this bother me. It's small, but it bothers me. We work at a good airline. This place is far from great. I'm amazed at how many Delta pilots just accept things like this as they are.

That's the pay RATE part of the equation. When you add the much higher insurance premiums, lower line values and the worse work rules, it adds up to a significantly lower W-2, and lower take home for many of us northies. 2010 was the first year I made the same at Delta as I did in my last year at NWA.

Again, not complaining because we NWA pilots voted for the contract. But the facts are what they are. Most NWA pilots took a significant pay cut with this merger, and we are now just getting to break even.

As a narrowbody guy, I made a few hundred more per month right after the merger. There was a huge disparity between narrowbody guys and widebody guys at NWA.

Under the old NWA contract a 2nd year DC-9 FO was slated to make $58.06 per hour. Coming to the JCBA increased that rate to $68.31 which was a 17.7% increase. Increases for 2nd year A-320/757 F/O were 13.9 and 17.5% respectively.

Under the reserve systems, a 2nd year -9 FO would make 75 x 58.06 or $4355 per month or 70 x 68.31 or $4782 per month, which is a 9.8% increase. This was all before the joint raises kicked in. In addition, the Delta reserve system has one more guaranteed day off per month and a set long call system. The NWA system defaulted to short call every day except when the company, at their discretion, released you to long call.

If we are going to argue then at least get the facts straight. If you can't even get the simple math correct, then your arguing points are all just noise.

The current DC rate is not an accident, it is not an oversight, people weren't lost in the shuffle. In February, 2008, when there was an effort to achieve a seniority list and a JCBA prior to the merger announcement, the NWA pilots were going to be brought up to pay parity and retirement parity on day one. While the JCBA would benefit every pilot, more than 50% of the benefits would go to the NWA pilots, even though they were less than half the combined pilot group.

At that time, everyone associated with the negotiations, on both sides, were told that time is critical and time is money. The JCBA was completed with full parity from day one, but the SLI discussions broke down with the DAL side going for relative seniority and the NWA side going for some modified date of hire list.

Fast forward to the JCBA. Time was in fact critical and time was money. There was less money to go around because we wasted months, and this time there would not be enough money to achieve full parity on day one for the NWA pilots. The NWA pilots had to figure out how they were going to ramp up to our crappy contract. They could have stepped pay raises or they could have stepped retirement or they could have some combination. They chose stepped retirement increases. That means for the whole group, including the 2007-2008 new hires. This was obvious to everyone from day one.

Would this leave two pilots next to each other on the seniority list getting different DC compensation? Yes. Not an accident, that is the way it was. When NWA new hires were hired on in 2007-2008, they had a set DC compensation plan. This DC compensation plan is only going up under the JCBA. It started out below the Delta rate and will be below the Delta rate until 2012. Time was money and there wasn't enough money to have full parity from day one. Every single pilot also lost 2% of pay each year. Not an accident, time was money, we were all warned.

You can argue until the cows come home over whether it was DAL's fault or NWA's fault that the seniority list wasn't done. We eventually ended up with virtually a relative seniority list, but hey we had our day in court. Too bad it cost us many millions of dollars.

What the hell's going on here? Are we going to be BFF's or something?

I remember that about Delta's history as well. Your operational efficiency and quality were legendary. When I was a new hire, Delta was the benchmark that we were trying to beat. I know Delta can do it, I just can't understand why we're not now, and how this current group of management could still be here

Carl

Carl,

Those are some nostalgic rose colored glasses you see history through. The numbers do reflect NWA's efficiency. However, in customer service, I will let the pros speak: