E175 is not an RJ? Then why is CRJ900 an RJ? Both are configured for 76 seats with identical interiors. Only difference is E175s have engines mounted under the wings and slightly wider in the cabin but they have increased drag as compared to CRJ900s. I do not expect to see DAL ordering any more E175s but I think it is very possible DAL may order more CRJ900s. E190s are what you guys should be worried about at this point. I think it might be too late for recapturing 76 seat jets.

Also, like someone said earlier, unless DAL strives to recapture ALL 76 seat flying or at least within its wholly owned regionals, it will not work. Just capturing Compass 76 seat jets, 36 in total, will be difficult because of the dynamics with the other wholly owned regionals like OH and XJ.

Regionals are virtual carriers, they exist because of the mainline.

Sailing: Picked apart your post because on every other point you made we are in complete agreement.

Your point B however is revisionist history. The real path to outsourcing Compass and the E175 is outlined in the NWA Zipline dated October 18, 2004. This was well before bankruptcy. Simply it was a sale of jobs and it bragged that "no other pilot group has received Dollar Credits for such a provision." It was also predicted that none of the current NWA pilots jobs were sold with this provision. We can anticipate that Delta pilots jobs were actually sold ... and of course in bankruptcy these "credits" disappeared.

What remained was the sale of our jobs.

You are correct that we are going to get this back in stages.

Do me the favor of explaining why "hostages" on a lower paying airplane, junior to you, are different than our 2007 hires who will likely be on the street under this scope sale? What defines a hostage better? Low pay or no job?

Thanks.

You surely meant to write "alter ego." You are correct, they offer Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance, or "ACMI" in the nomenclature of our profession.

No way! I commute on both.......the tube is much bigger in a 175. You can get your bag down the isle, and you can stand up straight in the cabin and bathroom. Also, the bottom line is that NWA was involved in the selection of Compass pilots and no matter how much I like every Mesaba guy I've ever met none of them can say that.

Your right though, the current battle ground is the EMB-190 and the C-series. But, I refuse to have something done by a bankruptcy judge last forever or be a stepping stone to the next battle.

Ferd

Buck,

Your right on the time line (of course). I remember talking to the FO rep from DTW, who was jumpseating, when he talked in very broad terms about what was about to happen. I was amazed and p***ed, he tried to hose me down. Said it was going to be a better deal than what the bankruptcy judge was going to do........I'm still not convinced. But, yes, we cut a deal but the gun was to our head.

Ferd

OK guys, PM me your e-mail and I'll send you the ZipLine where the discussion of the scope sale is outlined. We went to the farmer's market with Chickens to sell a whole year and a half PRIOR to bankruptcy.

We sold the first chicken, depriving ourselves of the benefits of subsequent egg production.

As we see with MidWest, management knows where they can find Roosters. The Chicken + Rooster combination is dangerous because they can get in the comfy codeshare nest and procreate, making more chickens. As the number of Chickens grows exponentially they are harder and harder to keep in the roost, they peck at eachother and crap all over the place.

But back to the schelp that sold his chicken. Now that he owns fewer and fewer chickens his respect amongst the farmers has decreased and instead of driving the market price for chickens he finds himself having to sell his chickens at whatever price the market will bear.

The only way to re-establish our dominance of the chicken market is to negotiate and recapture the return of our chicken. We will gain more pay for our chickens and enjoy their eggs if we do so.

Sometimes I wonder why Jesus (and I write this with no sacrilege) didn't just give up on teaching with parables and tell his followers - STOP SCREWING EACH OTHER!

There would be hostages because it would be very simple for the company to drop the E175 flying if we still had 200 plus airframes flying at the connection carriers. They could fly those airframes more or add some RJ-70's to pick up some flying. They then furlough 360 mainline pilots and suffer little or no route disruptions. They might even do it before contract negotiations if the regionals have to large a cost advantage.

Holly crap Farmer Bucking Bar! First off what we need to do is let bygones be bygones. Whatever Moak and Co. have F 'ed up in the past is done. With that said, the next item on the menu should be to tell our Reps, loud and clear, GET OFF THIS CONSESSIONARY IDEALOLOGY! The meander through our contract without supervision because WE LET THEM. I have thought in the past that the MEC would do what was best for Delta pilots. Well my friends, I was so dead wrong. Do you realize that at one point pre-merger we had nearly 10,000 pilots? I'm affraid we will again in the future.

I actually had a long unguided discussion with a M88 CA in MCO recently. He was perfectly happy with his pay and benifits and thought it "was about right." Well let me tell you something, I'm not happy at all with our pay and benifits. SCOPE goes way beyond the E175. Why is Alaska and Midwest doing our flying? For those of us not based in Mecca (I'm in LAX) the flying opportunities are weak. For those pax that are comming from SEA to continue to SYD or starting in LAX flying to SEA to continue to NRT, WE should be doing that flying.

Call, email, mail, go to the ALPA offices, but tell your reps that you are not happy with the direction DALPA has taken. Give them a chance to voice the direction of the membership and carry it out. If they don't, well a one word quote from Carl "RECALL."

BD

No virtual works, without the mainline help the regionals cannot afford to exist at their current cost structure.