Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver
Hey, I'm no expert on scope. The synopsis I posted came from someone who is very knowledgeable on this issue and knows the history of it at Delta very well. From what I read, it looks to me like the really big mistakes came with LOA 46 and especially LOA 51 and after. Everybody always points to C2K as the source of the problem and they make the assertion that we traded scope for pay. I guess you can sort of say that, in that C2K scope was less than perfect and we got big pay increases. But I don't think "trading scope for pay" was the intention of the agreement or the intention of those who voted for it. Nobody could have foreseen 9/11 and the severe economic situation that resulted in the scope resets. And to keep pointing to C2K as if it was a huge mistake on scope and that the pay increases were all for naught... well, I just don't think that's accurate. Hindsight being 20/20... of course we should have nailed down scope better with C2K. But from what it looks like to me, the place we really let scope get away from us was after C2K. The assertion that we took C2K pay and were willing to allow the bottom end of our seniority list to be outsourced (furloughed) in exchange for those pay rates... that just doesn't seem to hold water from what I remember and from the synopsis I posted.
Of course, it's all water under the bridge at this point. Except what I think matters is that we not make more mistakes going forward. That's why I don't want people leading us going forward who have the same philosophy as the people who helped get us into so much trouble. We need to learn from the past and focus on the future.
To be clear, it wasn't the C2K rates that caused the scope problem we're dealing with, nor was it simply a matter of "trading scope for pay". The reason C2K is relevant WRT scope was because that was the last full section 6, the pilot group had a pretty good amount of leverage and no RJ's over 50 seats were in service for Delta yet. Additionally, a more comprehensive solution was within reach since the vast majority of DCI lift was done by 2 wholly owned carriers.
The "carrot" of C2K was largely "United plus" pay rates and that target fixation resulted in a huge opportunity to merely cap scope at the 50 seat level which would have been huge from then til today. 3.b.6 was also gotten rid of in the tunnel vision of "United plus" rates. It wasn't that a whole lot of scope was sold per say, but that a huge opportunity to keep the camel's nose out of the tent was passed up. But its all water under the bridge anyway and like you I hope we learn from our mistakes. 255 DC-9-10 replacement jets and hundreds of other other jets are being outsourced right now and no matter how we got to this point we need to work to fix it as well as reduce the Alaska abuse and tighten up the foreign JV language.
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04-24-2023
