Were you awarded ATL M88 B or something?

 

No. I hear that was the place to be though. Great trips. Great crews. Lots of green slips. That's what the word is on the street. I'm trying to keep it quite, but.....

 

Slow,

All true, but little consolation for a lot of our junior guys. We are stagnating. Guys off the top don't really help guys on the bottom too much if we don't hire and grow.

For example, and I do realize that this is exaggerated, but it makes the point. If the top 25% leave the 2nd quartile is now mostly the top (huge benefit). The third quartile moves up to mostly the 2nd (large benefit) but the bottom 25% are pretty much still the bottom, albeit now reaching up to 33% on the list (marginal to zero benefit).

Granted UAL and AMR are worse but every Pilot hired after about 1999 would be making more if they instead went to Southwest, FDX, Jet Blue, Virgin (mostly), Atlas, and who knows who else.

I am hoping our next contract will change that and who knows what the future holds, but as of now every Pilot hired after around 1999 at the worlds biggest airline would have been better off going to a lot of other airlines. I would think this would be a concern for all DAL Pilots - realizing that guys would have been better off going to LCC's.

This is why the junior guys fixate on Scope.

Scoop

 

Bears?

btw, watching the ATL-PHL game... the awkward bowl... and I'm going to go find out how much it cost to put that turf down on my yard. It's the only thing about the dome that looks good.

 

Ahh....the Bears. Their non-existent offensive line is obviously the reason behind my posting of the sad clown.

No. It was really the beginning of another SLI debate that did it. I'm guessing it's because we are talking about reductions (again) instead of expansion or upwards movement. For the record, I hope the next AE oracle brings some good news for everyone.

 

I got final approval a few months ago, but the details had to be hammered out.

From the article it looks like a 3:1 deal:
3 VA routes
1 DAL route

That's a bad deal because I feel it's not worth loosening scope to protect a SYD layover.

Even if we get the next growth route, thats an awful lot of promise to sell scope to an airline that itself has horrible scope with multiple certificates and multiple seniority lists and is in bed with Emirates to boot. If nothing it's poor trade-unionism to support that.

There was a rumor of DAL picking up a West Coast -> MEL route.
If that's the case, the deal is better for DAL pilots, but we're still supporting the intl. equivalent of a go-jets type operation...

Funny thing is you might buy a Delta ticket, but fly on a SkyWest* flight on either side of the Pacific...

At the very least the LOA should stipulate that only flight flown by Delta pilots may be sold as part of the JV.


Cheers
George

*Skywest in Australia, note the spelling difference!

 

I hear ya.

As to football... Cam Newton is on pace to pass for 6,832 yards this season far surpassing Dan Marino's 1984 5,084 yards. Not bad for a rookie that's not smart enough to play in the NFL, will never learn how to play, can't pass, ran in a gimmicky college system and is only a running qb.


ATL got lucky.

 

Slow,

The point remains that a merger would be bad for at least half the pilots on the Delta list.

It would be better to grow organically, as Delta was trying to do under Jim White before the BOD's futile pump and dump (day I was hired DAL was >$21.00 a share, on day after merger announcement DAL <$8.00) Bottom line, if this Company can not grow, then it can't make much out of a merger either. Organic growth is cheaper over the long term.

Am I grateful to have a job? You bet I am. But, it does not change the dynamic a merger would have on our pilots.

What did Air France / KLM get for their three quarters of a Billion dollars? ($750,000,000.00) A feeder?

 

He's also on pace to throw 64 interceptions and never win a game in the NFL.

Those would be records also.

 

History shows you can't make that assumption. ALL Delta pilots were better off wtih the DAL-NWA merger when compared with their non-merged peers during the same business cycle. While speculative, I contend that neither the standalone NWA or DAL business plans would have worked out well for junior pilots in light of oil prices, tsunami's and volcanic eruptions. Without the $2 billion in merger cash from AMEX and the timing of individual debt service of both pre-merger companies, in my view there would have been substantial job shrinkage at DAL and NWA, just like everywhere else.

Can you name one thing that Jim Whitehurst did besides Velvet Grope? He talked a great game telling each employee group what they wanted to hear, then doing nothing except change his story for the next group. He was also a big Kolshak promoter. But he sure was an effective negotiator for the company at the Paris Air Show...


I'm not following you here.