Relative seniority will bite us in the ass

 

All in agreement.

Are we competing anyways? Seems we're mostly as Delta pilots competing against DCI. When SWA comes to town the airline is going to compete with them anyways. In the meantime UCAL, AMR and DAL have staked out their territories and neither is going to intrude knowing capacity control is the key to profitability. Don't screw with the system. This isn't the old days where you inserted your aircraft into someone else's market and started an airfare war. This is a no growth and no intrusion industry now.

imho our only movement upwards will be on retirements, not growth. Unless of course we grow out the bottom in replacement of DCI?

We read our touch and goes.

Are you saying we should post accurate financial numbers here on the internet? If we had them? I bet that'd be illegal. [insert green smile guy here] But there is good numbers out there to be had on the internet of some smart people that dissect annual reports.

For the record, I've been using min reserve numbers. What happens above that is too much of a variable between two airlines with totally different pay systems.

Someone asked earlier why ALPA was using 900 hours, not 1100 hours. How do we know 1100 hours is accurate? Does that include reserve pilots or is that just line holders? And if pay increased substantially and new rest rules were put in place and GS/WS flying got harder then 1100 hours wouldn't be the average whether by choice or by the system.

So why use 1100 hours when it may not be accurate in 2013? If we do we could really shoot ourselves in the foot when we can't achieve 1100 hours anymore but our pay parity was based off of it. I say we use min guarantee numbers because that may be where we all end up.

I agree the 88 line is debatable, but it's a worthy debate and I'm going to argue for it.

As to 73NG efficiency provided higher pay rates because of the higher profitability, then why not higher rates on the super efficient 738 equaling MD90? Nobody seems to talk about bringing the MD90 up to 738 parity.

Especially given we're buying MD90s for $10M versus the super expensive 738 that according to SD or someone during the recent instructor meeting said it takes 25 days of flying to B/E.

The profitability of the airplane shouldn't be the basis of pay on it. The decision probably needs to be reversed. After all, if this happens we're going to pay DAL 737 pilots equal pay with SWA pilots flying 735s and 717s. Aircraft that in no way match the size and mission profile of a DAL 738 which makes up over 88% of our 737 fleet versus only 2% of their future fleet. That's not equal work for equal pay, that's a mistake.

I like that Sailing. No complaints. But I don't think comparing min guarantee is flawed, it's just math right off APC provided tables. But if you're about 2004 pay restoration then throw this whole SWA thing and let's go!

2004 pay restoration beats the living snot out of both SWA pay and the 15% increase plus COLA year to year that some seem to be gravitating towards. I mean we're getting reports of guys who'll take 15 or 20% on time increase and sell scope out to 100 seats in exchange.

But you know, if we get SWA pay for the DC9 as in 717 = DC9, and add $20-$30 more per hour for being handsome debonair Delta pilots a majority of whom funded their respective airlines recoveries, you're back to 2004 pay across the board.

So how about SWA + [$30/hr] but at least using SWA pay allows one to frame the argument around something tangible.

I believe these are 2004 numbers?

 

You could still do relative seniority, it's what many of us think should happen with SWA and AAI. Relative seniority after AAI's start date. In this case, JB didn't start till 1999.

It'd be a mess if you're post 1999 hire at DAL and NWA

Let's go with not merging again.

 

This also makes sense, because if we merge with Alaska they lose all the American codeshare and are suddenly not near as attractive. Same holds true if American buys them.

 

In our integration doh did not count for beans. Count on any merger going forward for that to be used against us. Jblu using a stovepipe relative seniority would be a slaughter for any of us below what the fictional stovepiped #1 320 capt at delta. My guess is they would start slotting in around the 4000ish numbers on our list.

 

If the slot swap goes through(and I imagine we got the unofficial green light before we announced the new agreement) I highly doubt a DAL/JB merger would ever be approved by the DOJ. We would have a NYC monopoly.

 

Speaking of, isn't HA hiring 25% of its seniority list in the next 12 months? If so, relative seniority would put a HA hire today at around 9,000 if a merger is announced next year.. Yikes.

 

Big tall fences!! ,minimum 30-35 years ;

 

I think in either case you'd be looking at a windfall. I believe you could easily argue each merger is different than the last and the fair and equitable solution to prevent such windfalls is determined by the circumstances of the individual merger.

To say previous precedent is the end all is to say there is no need for courts or such things as sentencing guidelines. It'd be like saying all murders are equal and 20 years is your blanket sentence. But we know its one thing for a child to kill an abusive father and an abusive father to kill his child.

That's my argument.

 

Good argument ftb.

I guess previous precedent is out the window with a lot of things. I never thought I would see the day when Delta pilots thought it was acceptable to be paid any where near what Southwest pilots were paid. Delta pilots finding ways to minimize our comparison with Southwest pilots? Fugedabout it.

What in the world is going on? What happened to us?