Bucking Bar

Delta's about to publicly release information on an airplane order. If that airplane order requires modification of Section 1, then THAT is driving the timeline in fast forward. ALPA's respect for its non disclosure agreements is not only appropriate, it is also convenient.

If the NC swap is made quickly, without folks running for office, it will be an interesting dot to connect. Also have to put a watch on ERJ, PNW, SKYW & RJET stock. TSA is privately held. The fact they got Compass puts them in the game.

slowplay

I wasn't aware of that either.

NuGuy

Well, if the MEC decides to relax scope again, I hope the DPA has a post office box big enough for all the cards they'll get.

FWIW, I spoke to two reps in two different bases, and they both said NO to scope sales.

Nu

Flamer

Do not ask ALPA to do something national. Also, do not stare directly at ALPA and always refer to them in the third person

Xray678

I think PG is probably right about the affect on the seniority list. The choice of staying senior on smaller equipment or being junior on larger equipment would likely be gone. No matter what, there will be some unintended consequences.

But what really bothers me is if you have one pay scale for captains and on for FOs then someone is going to get a pay cut. Whatever we do with the pay scale, it will have to be cost neutral vs the current pay scale. I see no way to pay everyone on the same scale without the top guys taking a paycut. Even assuming we were going to get large pay raises, then the guys at the top would get nothing while everyone else had their pay brought up to the top rate.

There are a lot of senior widebody FOs who have not bid narrowbody captain. The hit to their lifestyle was not worth the small pay raise. But if every captain seat paid the same as a 777 seat, then you can bet your ass a large number of them will want a captain seat....any captain seat. If you get to one pay rate do you rebid the whole airline? How much will that cost the company?

From a scope standpoint, if you support a single pay scale you may as well sell out the 100 seaters. There is no way the company will invest in a 100 seat aircraft when they have to pay the pilots the same as a 777 pilot.

Getting away from different rates per aircraft sounds great in theory, but in practice it can never happen at an airline like Delta. Too many obstacles.

Bucking Bar

Is this related to the Delta RFP announcement?

( ) NO, absolutely not, I'd put my web board credibility on it & you're a nut job
( ) Don't Know
( ) Can't say

No response will be counted as "that's NDA stuff ... jerk"

gloopy

I do too. My main concern over it is the risk that it would favor growth for larger planes while also favoring fewer smaller planes. Once the pay is the same, sure go ahead and give us a few A380s and give tons of 767/777/787/350s to JV partners. And forget about ever recapturing scope. As hard as that would be anyway (100% possible, realistic and worth it, but hard nonetheless) it would be even harder to try and bring 76 seaters back to mainline...or even the next gen 100 seater...at 747/380 pay.

I'm not saying a workable solution isn't possible, but I'm just not seeing one at the moment. Even if we had a dynamic rate that flexed for everyone proportionately to how much of each fleet type was pressed into service, that wouldn't do anything to fix that flaw in the system and would actually once again push the majority of the group very hard to outsource the bottom end so as to not effect the top pay downward. The only incentive would be that small percentage of very senior FO's and very junior Captains in the "habitable zone" of potential upgrades/downgrades in the near future with a small movement either way, and thats not enough. The company would then have significant pressure to keep the size of aircraft as big as possible and even more incentive to outsource more. UPS uses longevity pay and while their rates are good they don't fly anything under a 757. That would be very bad for us if we went that route, even with their payrates and retirement.

So for a LBP system to work, it would have to incentivise smaller aircraft (the much fatter part of the bottom of the pyramid rather than the top) and I'm not seeing how it would do that. If that could be addressed I would be in favor of it.

slowplay

If I changed your post to read

If it was a simply mater of rubber stamping the current Merger committee makeup, this could be done on a conference call in all of 3 minutes.

would you and ACL be down with that?

gloopy

If everyone did that we would accomplish most of the good parts of a NSL with none of the bad parts. Liquidation wouldn't be much of a threat if pilots knew that if their airline collapsed the other airlines would grow like crazy filling the void and the pilots at the fallen carrier could all go make 12 year (SWA FO or greater) pay. Add in a national hiring list and you have all the benefits of a NSL and none of the drawbacks.

gloopy

What if they did and one pilot group wanted to "deal an ace" to management to undercut other groups. What is the penalty? Thrown out of ALPA? OK, but they still get all the work. It would have to be enforceable.

Additionally, even if it were enforceable, ALPA would have to have significant other minimum standards. What good is a high pay rate if you have zero rigs, zero min days off, no monthly guarantee, no block or better, no retirement contribution, fly to the FAR's only, no work rules and no vacation, no per diem and no hotels on the overnights?

You would need a minimum contract standard and every single item would need to be fairly strong. You would also need it to be enforceable enough that the occasional carrier may have to liquidate ratner than go one penny below it. That is the challenge.