ACL;

I am just 1 of 12500 pilots. I am a reasonable guy despite my inability to avoid taking the random snipe when it is offered on a silver platter. I am going to guess that DAL has about 20% of the pilots completed disgusted (based on DPA cards), 20% of change from within, and 60% that will do whatever DALPA says. YMMV.

Scope was sold. Period. ALPA used it as a bargaining credit and told us that it was good for us. I am not sure that they even tried to use anything else as a bargaining credit...big picture.

We find ourselves in a position moving toward section 6 where (theoretically) we have limited leverage because we already used our bargaining credits to get C2K payrates - which ALPA (apologists?) say contributed to our bankruptcy.

We gave these payrates back in 2 LOAs pre-bankruptcy...I say that is an overdue loan (but I'm 1 guy). We woke up after a looong hangover and now we want some scope recature coupled with payrates etc. that reflect C2K + inflation or something similar.

1. We have scaled back the atlantic and AF/KLM is flying some of our trips as connections.
2. AK is flying the heart of our west coast
3. skywest and RAH arent being beaten back by our in-house union - giving them the green light to further expand.
4. A national officer tells us we can't strike over scope - which may or may not be true, but the implication is incompetence.
5. ALPA Nat'l tells us our greatest threat is Emirates.

We are darn near the cheapest yet most productive pilots in our worldwide neighborhood, yet we keep getting kicked in the nutz. Where is our strategic planning, where is our leverage. If it exists, I am not seeing it and believe me I try.

I have said that I believe in some constructive engagement when it is our shared interest, but in reality, what I see is a Lorenzo style shell game being run by colluding managements and our union is far too slow or stupid to see what is happening right in front of its face; dont see the forest for the trees.

Please help me see how ALPA is the winning team. Please, please, please.

 

Rates are only a small part. Need to combine them with days off and (17-18) and average credit (110/month - 8 hours min/day).

 

*

Scambo, well written. Painful though.*

I don't even want to make a joke about it, just depressed.

 

In 1999 ASA & Comair were DCI (apart from a very small SkyWest & Trans States presence). The entire argument for the merger was closing the hole in scope and just like we saw in 2008 management wanted to acquire these carriers and at that moment pilot pay wasn't the issue. Delta bought ASA to get its gates in Atlanta, prevent a competitor from forming and mostly to clean up the mess that resulted from ASA's Section 6 fight with founders George and John.

ASA already had it's initial RJ order in, which would have provided jobs for about another 700 pilots. Delta later increased this order to over 500 jets and took every one of them.

Since you complained about the speculative nature of the posts, I conceded and gave up on what is a speculative argument which does not matter now. But maybe that was an error. The real lynch pin was the change in ALPA's governance to facilitate the operation of alter ego replacement airline operations.

At the behest of the mainline members of our union, operational integration triggers were removed from ALPA's merger policy. The point being that ALPA's policy now formally accepted alter ego outsourcing of work with an airline's brand.(*)

Management has always wanted to replace us with lower paid pilots and diminish our power. The big change with the ASA PID was ALPA's change from seeing alter ego as our mortal enemy to seeing outsourcing as a partnership with management.

Today the biggest threat to our union is the outsourcing that was the result of the policy changes leading up to the denial of the ASA PID. That's arcane, but since others seem interested it is something worth discussing.

----

(*) Addendum: I do not have the research at hand to prove this point, but around this time is the first we see mainline MEC's monetizing scope and using scope in bargaining. First at US Air, United and then Delta's contract 2000. This makes logical sense since ALPA would have had a conflict with its own alter ego policy prior to the changes in the Constitution and Bylaws. Of course we know the result of monetizing and trading scope. It has been argued here sufficiently to show junior members' jobs effectively were sold in exchange for bargaining credits.

My point is, the selling out of your own Council membership began with the selling out of the regional guys. Once unity was "for sale" it changed everything.

 

+ 1 Well said.

 

Today, Delta is flying 3 757-300's and 2 757's from MSP to SEA. Some of those aircraft will fly with the Alaska code on it. If you are going to have a code share then both sides are going to have to have some benefits. Why would Alaska management or the Alaska pilots ever agree to a deal where Delta gets to "own" flying in their hubs, but Alaska doesn't get to "own" flying in their hubs.

Using your analogy, the Alaska pilots should be offended by all those A-330's and 767's flying out of their hub in Seattle.

If Delta did not have a code share, what is the chance that Alaska would not fly from MSP to SEA? We don't have a code share with American and I see them flying from MSP to DFW, ORD, and other hubs. Is that a Scope Failure?

 

They most likely would. But they would do so selling their own seats and using their own ground support people and gate agents and not flying delta pax making connections in msp. The latter would be our job.

 

From scambo1's post above:

"I have said that I believe in some constructive engagement when it is our shared interest, but in reality, what I see is a Lorenzo style shell game being run by colluding managements and our union is far too slow or stupid to see what is happening right in front of its face; dont see the forest for the trees."


And for any of you who might be unaware, Richard Anderson got is first Airline gig working as a Lawyer for non other than Frank Lorenzo.

 

That would depend on the intent of the scope section. As you've outlined, the goal is a mutually beneficial code share.

Scope failures are more directly related to alter ego replacement of our airline's pilots:

• Does the action increase or decrease the number of pilots employed (and represented) at Delta Air Lines?
• Does the action increase of decrease the representational power of the Delta Master Executive Council?
• Does the action protect the seniority & longevity of Delta pilots?

Based on objective criteria, the Alaska codeshare is controversial, but not clearly a "scope fail" in the same way the Compass divestiture was.

 

Reroute,

We obviously crossed wires somewhere. The quote I was referring to was the bolded part of the original post. No worries.

Scoop