Your posts looks to me like it was pretty competitive when you were hired. Cream of the crop even. You were hired under the current contract and in the last 1.5 years, you have gotten a 4% raise with profit sharing. Apparently our current contract was enough to get you and all of the other highly qualified applicants to join the ranks as Delta pilots. I am just wondering what has changed in the last year and a half that requires a major change in pilot compensation to get qualified candidates?

Amazing! All of the MEC members are out in force on APC! Still managing expectations, one APC member at a time...... Hey, we are 4 times as profitable as SWA, we fly large equipment internationally, and a year and a half ago no other legacy was hiring. He probably didn't want to pay for a type rating, and DL supposedly had the best to offer, until ALPA started managing expectations.....

Have you considered that the best thing we could possibly do is sign a short term deal (3-4 years) then when all you informed types start punching out (or retiring because APC stress does you in) the rest of us can get to work on a real deal based on the basic market force of supply and demand? What makes you think you're worth more than what the market dictates? Because you ain't flying a 707 or a DC-10. Can you please explain what you're doing in "real life" to artificially shrink our supply or to create demand?

I guarantee the second the regionals can't staff their own airlines, DAL will come crawling to us to strengthen our own scope. I just hope someone will be smart enough to say "We told you so".

And people think the younger generation feels entitled...

Just a thought.

Not sure how you come up with "we are 4 times as profitable as SWA..."

Year 2010:
DAL net income = $593 million
DAL total revenue = $31.75 Billion
SWA net income = $459 million
SWA total revenue = $12.1 billion

So, just by having ALPA start to manage expectations, we went from first to last in best company to work for. :rolleyes:

Hi, did you know when our debt is paid down to $10 billion by 2013 our interest payments on that debt decrease by $500 million per year? That's an extra $500 million per year we don't have to pay. Some of that would look great in our pockets, especially since we already gave up our pensions for half of the pilot group. But, you knew that......ALPA sure doesn't advertise that very much. We should go after that, it's called restoration.

How about last year? We made about $1.2 billion net, and SWA made around $300 million. That's 4 times as much. UAL made 6 times more than SWA did. Why do you use 2010 numbers? Manipulation at it's best. Use current data please, you're starting to sound like Sailing......

I think you're giving them way, way, way too much credit.

Every time another bottom feeder overpromises and underbids and hurts DL's operation, the MBA bonus monger mercenaries will jump all over themselves to fix the issue by signing another bottom feeder that overpromises and underbids even more, and they will cream their pants to sign the same ACMI providers to larger and larger "RJ's" if we allow it.

It is a religion to them.

I think the concern over the DALPA opener is that whatever it is will likely be the high water mark that will then be lowered to some degree towards the company's (obviously much lower) opener. IOW, whatever our opener is, there will be little room at that point to go up but infinite room to go down. So if our opener is weak, we start off from a position of weakness and then start bargaining downward from there.

Wanting to see our opener isn't about getting a sneak peak at the definite end result, but rather seeing where we stand and what the high water mark is.

Of course we could always just ask the DCI MEC's what they saw during their required "meet and confers" that way we can at least get an idea on our Section 1 openers. That is, if the DCI MEC's are willing to tell us what's in our own opener. We should ask nice, cause they don't have to tell us either.

So that's why we hired the "best of the worst" to do our NYC expansion for us? :rolleyes:

Astute oberservations. Unfortunatley based upon the ALPA "insiders" here we are headed for trouble. Their defeatest attitudes, going out of their way to publish the other sides talking points show a basic lack of negotiating know how and aggressiveness.

To your point regarding high mark starting position we can glean some good tips from negotiations in other fields and how these principles contrast with where ALPA seems to be taking us. Read on....

Anchoring a negotiation

Research has confirmed that the way negotiators perceive the value of any offer made in a negotiation powerfully correlates to any number affiliated with that offer. Given that numbers related to an offer tend to have a magnetic influence on the judgment of negotiators, these numbers are referred to as anchors.

First offers have a vigorous anchoring impact in situations of great fluidity and doubt, as in the case with many negotiations. First offers maintain a strong authority throughout the negotiation. This influence is so powerful that even negotiators who are aware of the hypnotic allure of anchors in terms of their judgement are often unable to resist this influence. Therefore, their assessment of a first offer seldom breaks out of the field of influence of such anchors.

Even people who recognize that they are wise to anchors are invariably influenced by anchors. This relates to the fact that high anchors selectively direct attention towards strong, positive attributes, whereas low anchors selectively direct attention towards weak, negative attributes.

Making or not making a first offer

Research into the affect of anchoring strongly suggests that negotiators who present a first offer frequently enjoy a substantial negotiation advantage. In many studies sellers who make the first offer have been found to achieve higher negotiated prices than buyers making first offers. Making the first offer anchored the negotiation in the favour of the sellers.

Furthermore, researchers have also discovered that the likelihood of a first offer being made powerfully associates to an increase of the negotiator's confidence and sense of control at the negotiation table. Those who are lacking confidence and who feel disempowered by the structure of a negotiation or the availability of alternatives are less apt to make a first offer.

There is also a great deal of evidence that the size of the first offer impacts the outcome of a negotiation - with higher or more aggressive first offers delivering better outcomes.

First offers predict final settlement prices more so than ensuing concessionary offers.

Aggressive first offers are advantageous to negotiators for the following reasons:

Such offers assist sellers to attain higher final agreements;
Higher list prices lead to higher final selling prices, as it causes buyers to concentrate on the positive features of a purchase; and
Aggressive first offers generate leeway for negotiators to give concessions without exceeding their BATNAs.

First offers that are timid generally place heavy limitations on the ability of a negotiator to agree to and extract concessions / counter-concessions, or not to go beyond their real base (walk away value). On the other hand, aggressive first offers allow the other party the scope to negotiate concessions. The ensuing result is that it increases that party's sense of achievement and satisfaction, and consequently the possibility of a mutually beneficial outcome.

Using an "Aspiration Base" focus

When negotiators ponder aggressive first offers, they should make such offers within the context of the following;

The strength of their BATNA,
Their aspiration base (the target at which their hopes and desires would be fulfilled) and,
Their real base (the bottom line beyond which their BATNA kicks in).
Although a clearly defined real base is an exceedingly important component of any negotiation, it is important that negotiators concentrate on their aspiration base when developing a first offer. Research findings reveal that negotiators who concentrate on their aspiration base when considering first offers are inclined to make more aggressive first offers. They generally achieve more beneficial outcomes than negotiators who focus on their real base.