Carl,
I've spent my time on the street and when I came back all the 72's and 73-200's were gone and replaced by Shiney RJ's. I get it! But I haven't seen one thing in writing regarding scope, only speculation. Perhaps I missed it. I'm completely open to suggestions..... Should I just not look at the TA, because I think I may not like what it says.

I've talked to my Reps. I actually have flown with one of the guys on the NC while he was trying to keep current and was very specific about what I expected. I decided long ago what I require to vote yes and what will cause me to vote it down.

I'm asking with all sincerity, what course of action do you recommend I take, what are you telling your fellow 74 guys? I've listened to all the parties, including what the DPA has had to say. Where is the hard proposal of which way we should go. I'm not looking for vague answers. I'm looking for people that are going to lead us to the next step.

Take a room of 100 people and 98 of them will tell you why you can't do something. Are you one of the other two? Either lead, follow or get out of the way.

Respectfully,

TC

That looks like a DC9 Captain. Forgot to botton his jacket!:eek:

Excellent excellent post!

The only thing I'm asking is that you vote NO if there's a poison pill...regardless of how good the "totality" of the rest of the TA is. My only point is that a lot of folks are stating what our reps are stating which is: "I'm going to vote based on the totalilty of the entire TA", and I'm saying that's fine as long as we don't accept a poison pill with our "totality." We've done that before and it's a disaster.

The regionals have actually shown us the way on this. Some have voted their TA's down after they'd been ratified by their MEC's. The MEC's then sent out another survey. The MEC's picked the top 5 items in the survey, went back to the negotiating table and quickly produced another TA that was voted in by a large majority. It CAN be done. In our case, if the MEC ratifies an agreement that allows Delta to fly additional 76 seat jets using non-Delta pilots, that's the poison pill. If we send it back with that ONLY point of contention, we'll quickly learn how badly the company really wants it. If they scuttle the deal, we'll know exactly how bad the company wanted it...and as such, how lucky we were not to swallow the poison pill.

I suggest we ALL lead in this anti-poison pill effort. Our MEC may not be able to because of the Ford-Cooksey settlement. We line pilots may ALL have to lead by sending it back if there's more 76 seaters in it. It would be a way to get our MEC off the hook. The MEC will have done their duty to help grow ALL ALPA represented carriers, but the Delta pilots said NO. Everybody wins. But we must be strong enough to lead our MEC.

Does that make sense? Hope that's specific enough. BTW, I'm definitely not picking on you as I enjoy your posts.

Carl

It's almost Saturday when I get to work again. In honor of this being my virtual Saturday:

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/...awesome-13.jpg

Delta's purchase of the refinery was with the assistance from JP Morgan right? They are the ones going to purchase the fuel and deliver it an all right? Is it the same JP Morgan that is doing this great on wall street right now?

JPMorgan trading unit suffers big loss - May. 10, 2012

I completely agree with you Carl. I'm in a demographic that has seen long stagnation. I've lost my pension, so the only way to recover from my furlough and the loss of my pension is to get my career earnings up. How do I do that? Move to the left seat! It's quite simple and I'm not going to make it more complicated than it needs to be. Anything that delays my upgrade is a no vote from me. Things are going to start moving very fast around here and I don't want to feel in a couple of years that we left something on the table.

Leadership. Last decade was terrible for the legacy pilots. Now the regional pilots are getting hammered. Let's restore our contract and get this scope issue straightened out. It all has to play out. There will be winners and losers. There are pilots at the regionals that have no ambition to move onto the Majors and that's fine, but I'm not going to have a hand in larger or more RJ's winding up at regionals. What I would like to see when I walk out the door of Delta Air Lines is that in some small part we all helped restore this career. If I'm going to belong to a National Union, I want a better vision of what an Airline Pilots career should look like. I had a ALPA LEC tell me last year that is not ALPA's job. Well, I disagree and if we can't do a better job, then perhaps we shouldn't belong to a National Union. This is ALPA's chance to set thing right.

So Carl, I've shown my hand. I look at life through my John Lennon rose colored glasses because I chose to. I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.... but I'm no dove and not afraid to pull my sword out of it's scabbard when needed, and certainly not afraid to vote down an unacceptable TA.

TC

I don't think that has anything to do with the oil desk.. unless I missed something

Trololo!

Yeah, over 6000 pilots are gone in 7 years. Right. Not only is that drastically innacurate (as in not even remotely close to being close) not all of those in the drastically smaller number that what you estimated who will retire under this contract are so quick so sell out not only their fellow company pilots but also the entire profession as you are.

I can't wait to cancel out your vote.

80,

You say above that the ALV+15 would rarely be used. I think, in the short term, you would be correct but in the long term (within a couple years) you would be incorrect. If the company gets this they will slowly but surely pare down the reserves in a category and, in a couple of years, you now have 10 fewer Capts. and 20 fewer FO's in category.(Numbers pulled out of a hat but you get the point.) That's when you will see many more reserve guys at ALV+15.

On another note, I just don't see how the Company can be offering early outs in this negotiation. Delta knows that this is going to be a pretty big gain for the pilots. Gains generally mean more pilots which means hiring. What the NNP shows is how some of the gains we make in manning, like more vacation, will potentially be offset. Not saying I'm for or against. I want to see the whole agreement.

Denny