OK, then how about this:
OK, so maybe I made that last part up.

It was my decision. Your buddies voted for it. After a little "high 5" with the board I paid myself $26.6 million and retired.

Great post. Anger is generally one of the first motivators for change. It is how you direct that anger that matters.

In terms of the discussion about DAL/NWA of ole and of today reminds me of Saturday Night Live in the sense that you always think the old casts are better than the new casts until the new casts are in the past and then you lament on how good the past cast was.

Truth is, most of a SNL show is not funny and for as long as I can remember only the first few skits are any good. So that makes you look back at the highlights of previous shows and say "man, it was so much more funny then." But that's because you're not having to watch the whole episode which is why back then you said "this show sucks, I wonder if they're going to cancel it?"

So the highlights gloss over a lot, but on the flip side, the highlights make you appreciate how good you had it and that you didn't fully appreciate it. So it cuts both ways.

Kind of like airlines. Airline day-to-day operations are always going to suck and probably always have. Looking back, it will look better than now but the question is because we remember the highlights which were evidently really good. But are we not realizing how good we've got it now, relatively speaking?

I don't get wedded to any management team or enjoy kool-aid because they come and go. We don't. That said, I think one day we'll have a new management team and wish we had RA at the helm. I think we'll look back and see it was fun being on the upswing, say early 1990s Braves, and even though we didn't have a World Series win in our hands yet it was a good time.

Or so I hope, and why not hope because like SNL, it's really is just a matter of what attitude we wish to take. So today while pilots before me still deal with the ramifications of 40-50% pay cuts, while IROPS is woefully mismanaged, while dinosaur tendencies of a nearly century old company(ies) creep in to where they don't belong and while D0 initiatives leave you scratching your head wondering how do you not understand that this can be solved via the ACARS, I still think it's pretty damn good now.

And in 2008, I thought it was a good idea to merge, I bought in. In 2040-2050 if blessed to make it that long and retire here, I'll still think it was a great idea to merge Northwest and Delta... It's really just an observation of mine, nothing more.

Not sure what will work on the 9, but most of the international guys I fly with, myself included, use the tote that the FA's carry. The negative it does not have dividers in it, but it works well. I had one Capt tell me there is a soft shell type of flight case that resembles the FA bag. It is on sale at Crew Outfitters (A Spine in ATL maybe Stopover in MSP)

It works well and allows me to carry two bags on trips shorter than 8 days.

Carl,

If you would read his original post he is lamenting the reserve guarantee and how he is losing money. (by the way I think our reserve guarantee is too low also) So lower line values don't come into play.

I fly out of NYC on the ER. I don't know how many fNWA guys I see now a days that couldn't hold international prior to the merger and now can. Most the of the guys I've been seeing were relegated to the A320 and now are jetting around Europe. One guy who is over halfway up the ER FO list in NYC, was flying Dublin, when I asked him why would someone so senior be flying a low paying Dublin route his answer was "I want to go to the all the places that we, meaning fNWA, never flew". So yeah I see how he is taking a paycut too.

You are in the unevnviabe position of being in the largest paying aircraft before we merged. A lot of fNWA guys ARE making more than what they used to because of the availability of more higher paying aircraft positions. Where as before they could only hold the A320 or maybe the 757 now they have access to a lot of other aircraft that pay significantly more than what they were flying premerger. Hell the 737-800, which has a payrate out of whack with the rest of the aircraft we have, paid more than anything on the NWA side other than the A330 and larger.

So you may be correct on your pay assessment because you don't have the ability to both get a payrate raise and an aircraft size raise. That is not the case with a lot of your former pilots.

Thanks, I do need to update, actually on the 320 now

Speaking of merging Northwest and Delta, I often wonder this and I'll throw it out for discussion but why didn't we come up with a 3rd name?

Now I majored in marketing, I love reading about marketing, I love studying marketing, I know the rules. I know what "they" say about changing logos, names, brand recognition, the 5 P's, and everything else but a 3rd name would've given them a clean sheet even if they didn't change a single thing they've done thus far from centralizing management in ATL, FF programs, SOC via DAL ops first then best practices and so on.

You could've looked at both sides of the merger and said from this day forward, we're moving forward as [ ] Air Lines, it's all new. Neither airlines past owns the future and thus, let's be all in. Hey customers and HVCs, remember those things you liked about Delta and Northwest, we've kept them, the things that made you said you'd never ever fly on this airline again, those are all gone.

Remember the one thing about marketing plans, you don't explain them you implement them. :D

I mean is it right to end the proud heritage of Delta? But we ended Northwest. It'd been better if neither would ever end but life happens.

Just a thought and probably a moot or moo point when we become "Skyteam Airlines by Delta" and you fly in to Paris and are following an A380 'company traffic' flown by AF.

http://iloapp.liladesign.com/blog/av...1239481567.jpg

Hell you could've named it Pan Am. The Helga's up in JFK would've been reduced to tears in the fetal position on that less than clean terminal floor. No longer could they say every other hour on an ER trip to Europe "by the way, I was Pan Am for 15 years and Delta doesn't know how to..." They'd have to say, I was RPA, Real Pan Am. :D

Yeah, I got a raise, and I got to move to a base that's closer to home. My paycheck is still thoroughly underwhelming. How about we focus on fixing that for everyone instead of arguing over who got the most tablescraps?

Well the JV is a "Metal Neutral" contract.......