You're right about the longevity crushing ponzi scheme. The same pressures apply to "mainline" flying with the neverending flow of start ups at ultra low contracts plus a completely reset longevity scale.

Even with the costs you outlined on the hypothetical CPZ E175 pilot costs if they were brought to mainline, how much per flight would that actually add up to? Then subtract the guaranteed profits and other ancellary costs of outsourcing.

Now how much more is it per flight or per pax? Ammortized over the entire airline, is it really fair to say we can't afford it or that it would punish the company so severely that it wouldn't be the same economically? Nonsense.

You can do your own math problem. Do the same over all labor groups. Then look at those "guaranteed profits" that have pushed PCL to restructure either in or out of court, and caused SKYW Inc to start losing money. And remember we're working for a less than 3% margin business all in. btw, that's good news, it means we're profitable.

Maybe the conventional forum wisdom on "guaranteed profits" doesn't stand up to the light of 10-K's... :rolleyes:

What's your point?

This list above is not quite correct...it's been modified now to the better.
Scheduling Alert 11-05 Jul 03 2011 included the following ammended verbage for section 8:

Section 8 E. 8., as amended:
8. A pilot who utilizes an off-rotation deadhead to travel from a domestic airport or an
airport in the Hawaiian Islands (other than his base) in the vicinity of his permanent
residence at the beginning of a rotation will be provided positive space on-line
transportation if:
a. Company Business travel can be booked in TravelNet without overbooking,
b. the routing does not pass through the pilot’s base,
c. the routing does not exceed the number of deadhead segments originally scheduled,
d. the routing is scheduled to arrive at a reasonable time before his required report under
Section 8 E. 5., and
e. the routing provides for a subsequent flight that is scheduled to arrive at a reasonable
time before his required report under Section 8 E. 5. if the pilot’s originally scheduled
routing provided for such a subsequent flight.
Note one: A pilot who utilizes an off-rotation deadhead under Section 8 E. 8. may attempt
his booking at any time within 14 days of the report of his rotation.
Note two: A pilot who utilizes an off-rotation deadhead at the beginning of a rotation that
does not satisfy the requirements of Section 8 E. 8. will be responsible for his
transportation.
Note three: A pilot who is provided a positive space reservation for an off-rotation
deadhead under Section 8 E. 8. will make every effort to cancel such reservation in
TravelNet if the pilot no longer requires or intends to use the reservation.
\
This underlined part above was left out of your description and it is CRITICAL-- virtually every deadhead at front end I look at has NO BACKUP for the company to get me there. Therefore, I am not required to deviate 4 hours earlier to create a backup. If your scheduled deadhead had a backup, you do... but I find this is rare.

They couldn't pay me enough to live in Dubai. I'd rather live in the U.S. and work for minimum wage at a Taco Bell than live in Dubai.

Yeah you have some cut throats that purposefully underbid to get the work. This isn't the first time Delta has hired one of those, and every time it gets what it pays for. That's why I said other costs. The costs of incompetence and a trashed operation are also something that is tough to list on a 10-K but its there.

Then there's airlines like SkyWest that have many, many hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank. They got that from legacy airlines like DL. Sometimes we subsidize competing LCC's like Frontier. It doesn't matter if they are profitable or not because as long as they exist and we subsidize them, we are trashing our own yields to some extent and/or reducing more capacity to alleviate their capacity. Either way.

Then there is the issue of long term contracts that DL doesn't want to be in but has no choice*. And lets not forget the insane multibillion dollar mistakes DL management has made WRT RJ orders and being on the wrong end of 2 wholly owned pump and dumps. Harvard's finest looked like the Washington Generals basketball team on those strokes of genius.

The company can do whatever it wants with all the other labor groups. DL controls who mans a particular station, who gets the MX, already does all the reservations and marketing anyway and the FA's are completely non union so the company can make them eat a B scale or simply off list it. Not our problem. If the response to that is some lame fear based "but OMFG they will unionize and junk oh no's!!!!" to that I say "so what" because if they do they will then have to spend the barganing capital to recapture scope on their end without the free benefit of "me too" they usually get, which means they will probably end up not wanting to spend anything if at all on it, which will put them back to square one anyway.

The dollar amounts of recapturing 70/76 seat RJ flying would be miniscule and easilly affordable and we just might get a superior operation out of the deal anyway.

*Fortunately, most of the long term conctracts are easilly broken with little to no costs. The vast majority of the "penalty" DL is on the hook for is being responsibile for the leases...but DL already pays every single penny of the leases and then some embedded in the contract to begin with.

And what's so special about this outsourcing logic with 70/76 seaters? Wouldn't the same financial genius also apply to 100 seaters? 150 seaters? Everything? What's so special about that seat range or cutoff point? And even if its truly necessary, why 255? Should we be allowing more? I mean, if its saving our margins and we can't do it and junk, why not allow unlimited large RJ's that way management can right size their capacity dicipline to better profitize the synnergies of outsourcing! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

But let's say you are right (even though you are not) and that pilot labor is the overwhelming driving factor in those jets being forced off our list with no hope of ever coming back. If that is true (which is isn't) then we simply do it for whatever wages support it, even if that means a B scale. B scales suck, but are infinitely superior to off listing that flying by outsourcing. There is no reason why that flying can't be on our list. Pilot pay is miniscule in the total cost per flight but even if it was the dominant factor, then we'd just have to do it for what we could get for it. But outsourcing has to start ending.

It still is a great layover. I hope I can do it at Delta one day.

Competitor ... Delta competes? Really?

Lest see if we "Win New York" with GoJets service.

... THE MEC IGNORED THE RESOLUTIONS OF DELTA PILOTS and divested Compass pilots from our representational structure.

That is our track record when it comes to the amount of effort the Delta MEC will put into recovery of Delta flying.

At least two from my new hire class (2010) have already left and several more are actively interviewing elsewhere.

There is an incredible pay disparity between what we are paid and what our brothers at SWA and FedEx are paid. It's been interesting to watch so many on APC be unwilling to accept that.