LandGreen2

Gee.....ya THINK? LOL!

Scoop

Not exactly - I got $8000 profit sharing (before the Feds and CA took their cut) at DAL but I agree with the basic point, pay at Southwest is much better than DAL. Although a 3 year 757 FO at DAL pays 104 which is what year 3 pays at Southwest. Realize however, that we are currently under a BK induced contract and remember 10 years ago it was exactly the opposite. What will it be 10 years form now?

Scoop

alfaromeo

I see we have had one more trip down the conspiracy theory route in regards to a major airline holding company buying a regional carrier and the merger supposedly stopped by either:

1. The evil ALPA National
2. The prejudiced mainline pilot group

This has been covered here many times, yet the same people seem to come up with the same wrong answers no matter how many times they have been corrected. So let's get it straight again.

1. Companies merge with other companies
2. Pilots integrate their lists AFTER the companies decide to merge

There is no such thing as a pilot initiated merger. In the case of Delta, after Delta bought ASA and Comair, Delta management decided that they wanted to operate them as separate carriers. They didn't even want to merge ASA and Comair. Since the companies weren't merging, it was sheer lunacy for pilots to start talking about merging their seniority lists.

This lunacy was portrayed as some black helicopter conspiracy to keep the regional pilots down or (insert your own conspiracy theory here). The fact is, if Delta was not going to merge with Comair, then what good does it do to try to merge the seniority lists? You could merge the seniority lists by date of hire, staple, shoe size, height, or any other factor you want to use, but in the end if the company doesn't merge then the Comair pilots are not employees of Delta, they don't have a Delta ID card, they haven't gone through Delta training. Delta management retains all the rights to determine those.

When Delta bought Northwest through the stock swap, there is only one reason why Delta had to merge the two seniority lists. It was required in both the DAL and NWA pilot contracts. Without that clause, Delta could have operated the two as separate carriers forever. Look at Skywest and ASA to see how that is done.

So could we please stop the lunatic conspiracy theories about PID's being squashed. Say it again over and over until it sinks in:

Management merges companies, pilots do not.

JobHopper

Thanks for the clarificaiton; I did not understand all the possibiilties. I think #2 would be the most effective way to end the practice.

Disagree. This is a "no cost" item to fix. The trip pays the same to whomever flies it, so the company is not out one penny. How much negotiating capital is expended fixing no cost items? I would hope none.

The obstacle is the number of guys who benefit from this system. My sense is there are quite a few, or this would not be an issue. I'm not against guys making money, but it should be done in a less devious way. Another very simple answer is to remove the pickup cap. If it's legal and you are senior enough to WS it and get a 150 month, more power to you. NWA had a system similar to this; they didn't care how much time you picked up, but if a trip put you past 80 hrs the guys who were below 80 had first shot. The same logic could be applied to the cap.

tomgoodman

The problem with that would be "more flying done by fewer pilots" -- furloughs for the bottom guys and stagnation for everybody else.

Scoop

Exactly!!!!

The last thing we need is for 12,000 guys to try to fly 80+ hours a month. Soon it would be 11,000 guys trying to fly 85+ hours, 10,000 guys trying to fly 90+ hours etc.

And the sad part is most guys would just be treading water to make up for the all the negative movement this would cause.

How about a pay raise so that we can make a good paycheck with 75 hours.

Scoop

Happy Memorial Day!

JobHopper

I see your point, but I gather from reading on this board that exactly that is already occurring. Plus, we are talking about uncovered flying that is on the open board. That will be done by pilots already on the property, so no furloughs. I agree with the stagnation, though. The more guys do this the fewer pilots we need.

Going2Baja

Hey guys...trying to find out if we can trade pilot to pilot out of base (line holders) if qualified and have correct Visas. Crew sched says no, but I can't find it in the contract. When looking at the swap board section it doesn't mention out of base. Anyone know?

Thanks, Baja.

(please PM me along w/ posting here, thanks.)

Denny Crane

Currently you cannot do out of base swaps either with swap with the pot or pilot to pilot.

Denny

scambo1

A regional pilot is making that arguement. Try to keep up.