Junior guys also have less to lose by leaving for more lucrative contracts, or to put it another way, they are not tied to one company as much as senior guys are.

I like Delta, I enjoy going to work, and I enjoy the quality individuals I work with. I just want to be appropriately compensated, and what is "appropriate" right now is the point of contention.

 

I'm okay with whatever works, and if it's "constructive engagement", detached negotiation, or walking up and down the front of the terminal with with a placard. The toolbox needs to have more than one tool in it. If the only tool you have is a hammer, pretty soon every problem starts looking like a nail. I value the positive results of constructive engagement, and I realize confrontation is a last resort. But it needs to be a viable resort. Have you been to a strike committee meeting or organizational event lately? I haven't. I never remember any animosity between employee groups at NWA, we were all unionized and as such the spectacle of what frequently occurred in public during contract negotiations at Delta never occurred. We were always pulling for you, and to see the company and the non-union line employees creating farcical events to disrupt your negotiations was unnerving. I do remember getting my meals on a plate, but I haven't seen anything but "little friskies" canned mush and crackers lately.

 

How has SWAPA EVER furthered the state of the industry? Was it that 10 year contract they signed back in the 90s? Was it negotiating a less than industry leading pay rate (at the time) Or was it by bending over the AT pilots, thus invalidating Bond McCaskill? Yeah.. THAT must be it..

 

Good. That would be a hard point to argue. (Although I'm sure Sailingfun, Slow, or Alfa would give it a try.)

Now that is where you go off the rails IMO. There is no rule in business that says the costs of an employee group at one company have to equal the costs of the same employee group at another company. SWA is a good example of that. They pay their pilots almost 50% more than Delta pays its pilots doing comparable flying. Yet SWA is profitable and has consistently been profitable.

Some companies consider higher compensation to be a strategic advantage. They recognize the many intangibles that help the bottom line when you attract the best people to work for you and they are motivated (and rewarded) to give you and your customers their absolute best.

I wouldn't invest in an industry (or a company in an industry) that has lost more money over its history than it has ever made. So to answer your question... No. I wouldn't invest in DAL stock whether it paid its employees top dollar or its employees worked for free.

Now, as far as what other investors (who are dumb enough to invest in airline stock) would do. I think it is up to Delta management to make decisions that are in the best interest of the business. A big part of running a quality, successful company is taking care of your employees who in turn take care of your customers. It's up to management to make the right decisions for the business and then, if that raises questions with some investors, communicate the reasons for their business decisions and sell the investors on what we are doing to maximize the quality and long term success of this company. It's not a hard case to make. That's what the "Director of Investor Relations" is for.

Respectfully, I submit that you are looking at it from only the cost side of the business equation. There is much, much more to running a business than controlling costs. Don't get me wrong. Cost control is important. But it is not the end all and be all of running a business. IMO there has been way too much focus on cost to the detriment of doing what is in the best interest of the business and its customers. We're in the era of "bean counter management." It's a fad that, unfortunately, we are having to live through right now. I generally don't do predictions... but I predict that one day this era of over infatuation with cost (to the exclusion of other equally or more important things) will be used in business textbooks as an example of a colossal failure and a clear example of how not to do it.

 

Exactly. Sailing might be the ALPA appointed board member that gets Stockholm Syndrom listening to possible future plans at the airline and then volunteers our pay to fund it. Paying pilots more is the cost of doing business. We gave up a lot in BK, and now it's time to restore a lot of it. Sailing likes to do management's job.....manage expectations.

 

???????????

 

Why gen up a strike committee when we haven't even exchanged openers? Seems like a waste of time to me.. I think the toolbox has plenty of tools for the time being. Why reach for a hammer when you haven't even begun construction?

Animosity might be too strong a word. But when I first started flying across the Atlantic with fNWA FAs, I NEVER... EVER... over the course of 6 months, got a call from the FAs asking how we are. And my meal was NEVER on a plate. One would think they would have a vested interest in knowing we were awake.. alive.. even on board, but I guess not..

 

Sailing is notmanagement nor is he a DALPA MEC/LEC member as far as I know. You like to further your own donut agenda...

 

T. Try a nice breakfast burrito. Or maybe a healthy protein shake or cereal. But this obsession with donuts is really not good for you!

 

Manning up is not Man-up. Staffing up. We staffed up the MEC and LEC's and acted like a labor union. Sorry Sink if semantics were wrong. We are all one group.