I think what you're seeing is a lack of staying informed and participating in the activities of your own union.
(Changing the nameplate on the door won't fix that.)

You'd be surprised at the many, many ways you can affect the actions of your union just by doing a little reading and showing up at your LEC meeting with your vote.........

 

As far as I can see, that effort is too time consuming for many. Many want the meeting done via the Web so no one actually has to show up.

 

ACL,

It seems some pilots do not want to participate because they are worried of the ramifications of not agreeing to the majority/union. In other words, they are concerned that their ideas will fall unto deaf ears or perhaps they might get black-balled or criticized for not agreeing with the union.

I have heard of this first hand from a lot of pilots. If u look at the DALPA site, its always the same people posting.

TEN

 

Well I am living proof that disagreeing is OK. It is part of the process. If there were more pilots that partook in the debate of each and every issue, then this "silent majority" might actually be less of a mystery and more of a known codified quantity that no side could use as a reason for a default position.

What is key is, once the disagreements have been discussed and a decision has been made, whether your position was the one that the union went with matters a whole lot less than getting behind the majority position. I know that is difficult because I have felt very strongly about a few things that did not go the way I wanted them too, but multiple factions on each issue make us easily divided and conquered.

Its about the end game. Fight the battles but never miss sight of the goal. I also submit that if more pilots that were disenfranchised with the current path got engaged, one of a few things would happen. 1) The leadership would get the message and adjust, or 2) The support would be there to make the changes many desire. Until the participation levels go way up, it does not matter if it is ALPA, DPA, IPA, APA, USAPA, SWAPA, etc the results will be the same.

 

Yup, Krash is a great dude. A pilot's pilot.

If this keeps up, I may have to rethink my position of our management's decisions.

Carl

 

This is an excellent point. It is much too easy to show displeasure on an anonymous forum then it is to actually talk with a rep or go to meetings. Want change, make sure that YOUR reps know that you want it. Wishing it to happen and making it happen are two different things. Get involved, email, text, call your reps - it is your career. And we can all start with filling out the contract survey. It would be a shame for this important tool for the pilots to fall into the apathetic black hole.

"...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done." T. Roosevelt

 

You must be new here. I say that because there have been literally hundreds of posts from many of us chronicling our attempts at doing all the things you list. None of it works because our opinions and the opinions of our reps are irrelevant to the MEC bureaucracy. The most recent proof of that is the complete ignoring of the FPL resolution out of DTW and other councils.

When you post what you think we should be doing, it shows some real ignorance and really poor assumptions on your part to assume that many of us aren't doing these things a lot. It's actually quite insulting.

I don't mean to sound like I'm pinging just you because you're certainly not alone. Many of the incurable ALPA shills just keep restating these talking points over and over while remaining oblivious to the facts all around them...like FPL.

Carl

 

Here's how capacity constraint works in the DAL AS Enhanced Marketing Agreement:

• Alaska Airlines reported a 10.4% increase in traffic on a 7.2% increase in capacity
• Delta reported a 0.9% decrease in traffic on a 2.2% decrease in capacity

I'll break it out, for those who say we have Intl and Domestic, but the conclusion is the same:

• Domestic traffic increased 0.5% year over year on a 3.3% decrease in capacity. The domestic load factor increased 3.2 points to 83%.
  
• International traffic decreased 2.8% year over year on a 0.6% decrease in capacity, and the load factor decreased 2.0 points to 84.5%.

As for the RJ "pulldown", compared to our Domestic mainline operation:

• Mainline RPM Flat
• Regional RPM +2.3%
  
• Mainline ASM -3.8%
• Regional ASM -1.5%

Cheers
George

 

ACL- We all want restoration of our contract. The loan and sacrafice that we have given this company in their time of need has to be reconciled with. A pay raise on top of that would be nice. As a minimum, we have the nothing less than SWA crowd arguing with the DALPA acolytes, as they try to manage expectations down, over trip pay and w2's.

C12K is a an emotional and angst ridden topic. We have a contract comparison that is skewed towards airlines and data that doesn't reflect all of our competitors. It is missing data on KLM/AF, and that information will not materialize, if it does, until after the survey closes.

Basically, there is already an organized effort to manage expectations down.

Why one might ask?

Perhaps some math and basic human behavior can answer the ? and might be a key to better aligning our goals and needs.

DALPA reps make 92 hours a mo. on the highest equipment they can hold in any base. Add to that a $1,000.00/mo. stipend.

Assuming there are reps that are on the 75/76A that can hold 777A on paper, here is the difference.

767a @ 182hr @ 70 hrs (for oct) grosses $12,740

777a @ 217hr @ 92 hrs (always) grosses $20,872 with the stipend. Disclaimer: these are basic gross figures and don't include any other income i.e. green slips.

I think there are some among us that are already getting restoration pay. And, why would they risk upsetting the apple cart. Might they be motivated for a status quo agreement that is comfortable for the company and Wall Street?

Now, back to ACL's point. What if the disenfranchised pilots that are frustrated with the current tone and management of expectations became engaged and changed the compensation for DALPA volunteers to what they currently hold at the average line value for that category. Throw in the stipend and per diem and thats it.

I imagine that very quickly we all would be fighting for restoration.

I am short on the details of whether this would be a resolution change, policy manual change, or involve recalls, but if the pilots want it and support it, it could be organized and happen. A showing of grass roots unity to achieve true unity. We all need to be pulling the same oars in the same boat.

 

That's not saying much. If you look at this site, it's the same people posting. Two examples of vocal minorities.