I think it's obvious. They don't even have to spin it. It looks like the majority of flying will be done by 70 seaters. While we flew 70 seaters in the past, for whatever reason, we don't anymore. It seems as though some thought the "little airplane flying" wasn't good enough for us.

Without getting into a union discussion, we should not have given away our ability to fly these airplanes. We can't expect management to put a 124 seat airplane on every new route they start.

What we should do is point out how 70 seaters used to be good enough for us and to state the obvious, that we need to find a way to get that flying back.

 

I think they already are.

Problem is ALPA sold this as a good thing three years ago before the financial meltdown. Lots has changed between now and then.

IMO, there should be no spin, just facts, and facts do not appease people.

Simply put, if you are irked because of this, then we have to have every pilots support to reel in scope, it has to be number one. Those words need to come from TO's mouth.

To me this action by the company is a perfect setup for unity building going in to Section 6.

 

Yeah! How much did DALPA give away to let us use the Borkerage Link?

What did "those DALPA guys" concede to the company to have the uniform vendor to come to indoc? What a bunch of giveaway artists "they" are!

I really, really hope you were being facetious.

Note to all: Please try to remember that not EVERYTHING revolves around pilots.....This is a Delta Corporate HR change/improvement for all employees.

 

Let them fly the 50 seaters we want the 70 & 76 seaters at MAINLINE!

 

I'm pretty certain as a future Delta hopeful, that I want all metal flying Delta ticketed pax to have a Delta seniority list pilot flying it. Regardless of size or propulsion method.

 

If your a fence sitter waiting to see the New Contract...

I would get your DPA Cards in ASAP...

Past performance is a great indicator of future results

 

I'm curious, when SONG came around it was flown by Delta seniority list, why when Delta Connection came around were those pilots not Delta seniority pilots?

 

You mean don't send a card in....?

You are correct: Past performance is a great indicator of future results

NWA 1998 contract set a new bar, so did the DAL C2K, and so did FDX 2002 for the cargo world.

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples here....

Profitable company = high paying pilot contracts.

Money losing/Bankrupt companies = concessionary contracts.

 

SD sent out a memo a couple of hours ago about this...they're gauging demand. As demand goes up, mainline will replace the RJs. It sounds reasonable.

A year from now if it still looks like all RJs, then I'll be ticked.

 

DCI was around a couple of decades before Song was thought of and really took off from 1999 on with the explosion of small jets which were permitted under our scope language.

There were several historical turning points when it came to outsourcing. Probably the first was when Randy Babbitt, yeah him, was Chair at Eastern Airlines and decided it best to outsource the "B Scale" flying which was resulting in their junior pilots getting paid less than their more senior pilots for the same work. Mr. Babbitt to his credit, has been quoted as saying it was his biggest mistake.

Here at Delta, (name redacted), as MEC, Chair used similar language to describe the flying that ASA and Comair performed as justification for wanting to keep that flying away from the Delta seniority list.

They key to understanding this is, for the last 15 years or so, Delta's union leadership has NOT WANTED this flying to be performed by Delta pilots. The strategy was (and is):

• Set up small jet flying off the property, then
• Limit small jet flying's proliferation through scope clauses

Ours has been a failed strategy. By trading in members' jobs we fail to protect members' jobs. We do not enfoce scope, we trade it. But this trading has been institutionalized in as much as our leadership does not believe that we could perform small jet flying without an unacceptable cut to our pay and benefits.

If you make a graph of pilot pay versus productivity, you will quickly see the small jet drivers are mostly OVER paid for what they produce & "we" are mostly under paid. IMHO, the senior pilots who control our union have nothing to fear, and everything to gain, by restoring scope.

I do not know how you convince them. When the numbers tell the story, they ignore the numbers ... (names redacted)

In the past several years we've seen a political shift. Certainly the pilots who were trapped at the regionals and those who have stagnated during the decade's outsourcing get the big picture. Reps have at least reversed their public positions ... we will see if anything has changed.