And i am embarrassed to be associated with a group of guys whe "think" they have a moral high ground because they have lived in mecca with no base closures or furlough's.
The reality is bases close and people get displaced and furloughed (twice for me), moving to base is fine and dandy if you feel you have a little stability. But that is not the case for most of the guys hired between 1999-2010. PG i am mostly a lurker and sometimes i agree with you but i think you are out of touch on this subject.

 

Pineapple,

When you were hired, did Delta require you to move to a base as a condition of employment?

 

Johnson, PG is never going to get it. I hope the rest of the senior pilots don't have their heads buried in the sand as deep as he does or we all be in trouble...

 

OK, lets talk money. Right now if you get displaced the company will pay for you to move, your car to move, to cancel your lease, up to $35,000 in real estate commissions plus an additional $2,000 for your trouble.

I don't know how much it costs for a move, but a quick web search shows about $5,000 per 1,000 sq. foot. So the cost for a 2,000 sq. foot house is $10,000. Let's say you rent that house for $1,000/mo. and the company must pay three months rent to break your lease-$3,000. Now your car-$1,000. Now you buy a new house in you base and you use less than half of the companies commission reimbursement--$15,000. Oh, you still get the $2,000 and about 100 one-way S1 passes (4 rt for you and your wife to house hunt+4 rt/mo for up to a year to commute.)

10g+3g+1g+15g+2g=$31,000 (conservatively) for the company to move you. With that much money involved, I am betting that the company is hoping that most displaced pilots do not take the moving package and choose to commute. The last AE MD'd about 200 pilots, that would be over $6 million if everyone took the package.

Lets assume the average domestic one-way fare is $200. That is 155 legs the company could positive space you on and still come out ahead. Used in conjunction with responsible commuting that amount of passes could last more than a career and still have plenty left over for family vacations.

In the spirit of compromise, lets disband the commute policy and say that a pilot gets their choice of a paid move or 150 positive space passes to be used anytime they wish during their career. I'd take that deal.

 

Come on guys. We can discuss the issues without getting personal. I've been as harsh a critic of PG as anyone. But, my gripe was his anti NWA positions that he took (for no other reason that they were NWA positions), and he has more than mellowed on those as time has gone by.......and good on him, and good on a lot of us for mellowing on our pmDelta gripes.

He is a knowledgeable guy and he has opinions and strongly held beliefs......just like the rest of us.

Ferd

 

Johnso29, you bring up a good point.

Question for everyone, do you think it was smart for them to put the most junior people on the 7ER? Most likely there will be some displacements in the system before these folks are fully trained and those folks will be displaced again, thus trained and no benefit to the company.

The DAL new hire placement system and the AE system masks what the real seniority level is to be able to hold and bid into a particular base/aircraft. There are folks in categories whose seniority is too low for them to be awarded an AE into a category like the 7ER, but, their category isn't shrinking so there's no chance for them to be mandatory or voluntarily displaced. The only reason why a lot the junior folks are in categories like NYC7ER is because DAL put them there. I am not complaining, just pointing out a flaw in the system.

 

Believe it or not, I'm fine with that. Negotiate an acceptable solution, don't lie to your employer because you don't like the current one.

 

Was it DAL that decided to park the -200's or by any chance was the operation not ran very well by those in charge pre-merger and finally got to a point that it was unrecoverable? I know the timing of the closure can point to DAL closing it but was that REALLY the case? I used to ride the freighters a LOT to get to work and am bummed more than many that they are gone but I hear a lot of folks trashing DAL mgt for doing this when I am of the opinion that the freighters course was set in motion years ago. Even had a chat with a few former middle cargo managers from NWA a couple of years ago who were still trying to keep it around and they were of the same opinion. Also the crews said that after the mechanics were driven out that the reliability fell so the DHL contract was lost, and this started the fall into history.

Not trashing the freighters, they were a valuable business unit to NWA for many years and in my eyes would have continued to make mucho dollars for the combined entity had it been managed properly, but I constantly hear DAL mgt getting trashed for things such as this when many managers from NWA are still around and making decisions too.

 

Sounds good to me. I could also get behind some kind of account based system that some of the cargo and fractional guys have, the commuters could use it to get to work and the locals could use it for vacation, family visits, etc.

 

Commuting is a choice...Delta's choice. If they don't want commuters they don't have to hire them. They could deny use of their jumpseats and non-rev privileges, and in effect require its employees to live in base. But they chose and continue to choose not to. So if you're going to hire commuters you have to live with those decisions.