Slowplay, I need a hug...... I'm just not feeling the LOVE from you and AlfaRomeo. Say something nice to me and I promise I'll always get the garbage bag and the preflight. Be real nice and I'll bring you a coffee, Sir! :rolleyes:

Here's a quote you guys can put in your next report: "First Officer Tomcat sets low goals and fails to achieve them".

Just kidding, really glad your guys are here, even if we don't see eye to eye on many issues.

TC

Well... yes, I know how our contract reads.

Now ask your Reps if we have flow to Affiliated Feeder airlines ASA, or Comair? Then ask why there are more than 55, 51-76 seat aircraft permitted?

Next question, how do we enforce scope provisions when it is nearly impossible to know what weights an airplane is re-certified for under a Service Bulletin?

Is the answer to the second question the same as the first?
Our efforts to outsource and maintain control of that outsourcing are flawed and need improvement. We missed the mother of all opportunities when Richard Anderson was at the table asking what we would need to support a merger. When the next opportunity comes I hope we step up to the plate. Or we could create our own opportunity by leveraging the scope violations going on right now.

Hey bar, I totally agree with you. How do you propose we do this? Although our next opportunity may be in the future a couple of years, the time to position ourselves for the next opportunity is now.

As a side note, Mondo is introducing the Scope Report Card at the next LEC 44 meeting. He has it on the agenda. Wish I was in 44. For those of your who are, please attend and support this. Tell everyone you know to show up. This may be a good start, if it has enough support. Quantify the SCOPE issue, then educate and organize. :eek:

TC

Yea Tomcat, get your FACTS right. If it was 10,499 state that, not 10,500!

There I go again bashing Tomcat. Sorry dude.

You're right about one thing. We've lost a lot of flying, but are slowly getting it back. At our peak (September 2001) we (Delta South) were scheduled to fly 202,000 block hours. At our lowest point (Iraq war startup) we were about 137,000 block hours. I don't have numbers for our pre-merger peak last summer, nor numbers for the combined operation, but I'll see if I can find them if you're interested.

We actually only "lost" slightly over 2000 pilot positions when you factor out those that retired from disability and reductions in positions.

I believe there are about 10,600 pilots actively flying right now out of the 12,300 person seniority list. There are a substantial number on furlough bypass and MLOA, plus those out sick, LTS, LTD, and DRP.

Hey Bigdaddie! It's alright! I'll have a relaxing drive up PCH tonight and recover from all the battery. Maybe catch some gnarly waves in the a.m. I better get my act together. Tough crowd! Sorry to hear about your seat loss! That had to hurt.

Think I've yanked your gear out here in LA! :eek: It's not what you think guys!
Hope you get re-instated in the near future. All the best.

TC

You don't know how much I appreciate that! My confidence is restored. :D Perhaps I can even manage a squeaker in LA tonight.

You're right about the number, but when we all chat, most of us just discuss the total head count. The active group always varies. It's interesting to know that even now we have that many inactive.

Information is power, so any insight you can provide will make us all stronger.

Thanks! TC

I think someone else addressed it, but you are comparing Pilots in Category to Total Pilots. You took the highest total pilots (and added a few hundred) and then compared it to the lowest pilots in category (5700). When we had 10,000 pilots we had many pilots from Pan Am and Western riding out the disability gravy train, so the total numbers were grossly inflated. Troy Kane was about 6,700 when we merged so we never had less than 6,700 total pilots.

We did lose some jobs there is no doubt about it. Some were due to three holers going away, we did have a huge productivity restructuring in there (about 600-800 jobs), and we have now bounced back from the lows. We currently have 6,500 pilots in category.

On the two aircraft types you listed (CRJ 900 and EMB 170), Delta South had about 65 of those airframes in operation as of the end of the last quarter. Figuring on 4.5 crews per jet, that is under 600 total jobs, of which half (first officer) pay less than our probationary pay. So while this is a significant number, and by the way I agree they should be mainline, to say there were 5,000 jobs outsourced is just rubbish.

If you add to fact that the majority of those airframes came from the bankrutpcy, your argument that scope was "given away" just doesn't hold water. I am sure that we will get the revisionist history that if we were just more Clint Eastwood-like in bankrutpcy we could have gotten away with no concessions. Sorry, but that line of thought is so comical it is not worth arguing against.

So the bottom line is that some of the changes in our pilot groups have come from restructuring, some have come from the loss of three holers, and some have come from outsourcing. The scope and scale of outsourcing is too much for me to be happy with, but that primarily came from bankrutpcy where we were fighting against tall odds.

I think you will have more luck if you tuck your bitterness back into your flight kit and come up some defiinitive solutions to the problem by getting involved in your union. Like the Saturday Night Live comic you can just yell "Fix it" but that doesn't really fix anything. It is a complicated problem and it will take complicated solutions. Misplaced anger ain't going to hack it. The idea that the union doesn't care about this is also rubbish. Caring about a problem and actually having the leverage to fix it are two different things.

Sorry for the long post, but this issue has become rife with urban legends and false data. You can't fix a problem if you can't even measure it correctly.

CUN overnights....I want those too!! but I haven't ever seen a Mexico overnight on our schedule...they have broke down before in MTY but you can have all those you want ;).

You guys can have these E-175's too..I am ready for the stapler...and anything that comes with it :D

Duplicate sorry.