What if you are on long call and they call you with less than 12 hours to report and say "we see you looked at your schedule but didn't acknowledge your trip, we have a report trip that reports in 10 hours" I'm still trying to figure out the reserve system so just wondering how biding it is if you look at your schedule without acknowledging a trip.

 

I have a question concerning DCI. The 2011 10-k shows that we have contracts with the multitude of dci carriers ending between 2016-2022. How long are these contracts and when were they signed?

Because IF we're being asked to provide relief on 50 seaters via an exchange program with Bombardier, are we being had?

Were these contracts, and I honestly am askin because I don't know, recently extended for the purpose of boxing the airline into a corner so as to come to us in c2012 for relief? Acting as if these contracts extensions came before their time or are as old as the jets flying them?

 

Forget it.......,

 

It's their problem, not yours. Don't worry - they aren't the type of schedulers to try and bully you into a trip like that. Rules are the rules, for both sides. They'll call you prior to the 12 hours - they get a pop-up on their screen or something. If you're on LC they have to give you 12 hours to report, or 10 hours for conversion to SC.

The other day I starting SC at 1400 - saw in the morning that I had a trip that I didn't really want, so I waited to see if a WS picked it up or whatever (long short, but hey, didn't want it). At 1401 they called me to tell me about the trip.

In the situation you quote, until you acknowledge via your password in iCrew/eCrew, on the VRU or with a scheduler, you haven't acknowledged it.

 

FTB,

Yours is an incredibly complex question that involves such confidential information that I doubt a dozen people know the answer. Back in 2009 a group had compiled what they thought was an accurate list with outstanding obligations of 25 Billion dollars through 2018.* We ran this by ALPA who initially responded "no way in hell." Two weeks later they were curious ran the numbers and said, "we think that's about right." (Gross payable under current agreements) The gross amount has grown considerably since then with the sale of Compass and Mesaba.

In many cases Delta retained status as the lessee, and / or owner, of the aircraft and in some cases Delta transferred that obligation. However, in nearly every case Delta was compelled to remain guarantor to meet the guarantee requirements of the financing covenants.

To sum up, Delta owes for the airplanes even in cases where it does not own or lease them.

I don't think any of these contracts were executed with the intent of "boxing the pilots in a corner." Rather, pilots were not a consideration since we have a;ways "played ball." Management believes they can renegotiate scope at their will and past practice indicates ALPA renegotiates scope rather than enforcing it.

Just track back to Contract 2000 which was ratified AFTER Delta had placed an order for about 550 RJ's. Contract 2000 was modified in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006 just in time to allow airplanes ordered in 1999 to arrive without delay, including options!

If Contract 2000 ratios had been maintained the mainline fleet would have had to grow to nearly 1,400 airplanes to accommodate all the RJ's. That was impossible ... Contract 2000 scope language was doomed to failure from its very inception! That is why I've argued for an extensive re-write of scope language with the goal of making the language more inclusive.

If all Delta flying was done by Delta pilots, the NEW things that management has not even thought of yet (Delta private jets, more RJ's, codeshare, etc would be automatically owned by us by default). That is the power of unity.

 

They would only belong to us if they can be done at a competitive cost. If not then the flying is lost and the feed with a net overall loss of mainline jobs. That is the real question. Where is the break on that cost factor. I know many here state we can do the flying and meet the costs required yet for some reason managements will go to inordinate lengths to force the outsourcing. The entire AMR chapter 13 is basically about the issue. Scope there was very tight. Management was willing to face a possible loss of control of the airline (now a possible reality) to get the cheaper feed. One wonders why management did not decide simply to do the flying at the mainline. It would be a huge win win if it could be done in a cost competitive fashion. Perhaps the actual reason every single management team is willing to go to war on the issue is that it can't.
I still firmly believe the E170/175 belongs at the mainline and could be operated close enough to regional carriers that the network could make up the revenue. I am not convinced anything smaller would work. I think in the end the jobs we gained on RJ's would be lost at the mainline as we pulled out of many feeder markets. Like virtually every pilot on this forum I don't have hard numbers however the fact that not one single management team has even made a attempt at it tells me something. I know the last numbers I saw from the EF@A team showed a massive cost difference. The average regional employee is on 2nd year pay making peanuts. Mainline employees are almost all maxed out on payscales that pay a lot more.

 

9989...........

 

Sailing,

Understand your post, but do not agree that ALPA E&FA puts data before politics. E&FA people serve at the pleasure of MEC Chairmen (generally).

I advocate that we figure out what the number is to perform our own flying and bid it there. Unity trumps pay, particularly on airplanes we are way too senior to ever fly.

Curious your thoughts, but I do not think we will ever reach for these goals until the current generation of ALPA leadership retire ... if ALPA survives that long.

Do you agree this outsourcing is a existential strategic threat for ALPA?

Numbers wise the Next Gen 900 (ie downsized 1000) does better than the E175 and would be more capable of supporting "mainline" pay. I need to figure out how to host charts to demonstrate that in reality, the bigger equipment is probably under compensated for its productivity compared to outsourced RJ's.*

Internally there is "cognitive dissonance" on the CRJ-900 (ie "76 seater") I ran my figures past Delta's network planning guy during a pilot lounge visit and he said they were real close to what GoJets was doing. Then Southwest came along and published about the same thing. Now our Reps are allegedly being told Delta told them my numbers were way off. I think what happens is a new operator is compared with an old operator and ALPA E&FA picks the numbers which best make their case. I do the opposite. But, a new operator's cost most likely would be best to evaluate what a new flying award would cost out at.

 

Sailing,

I'm not trying to punch any holes in what you are saying, but I think there are inconsistencies.

I am not fully aware of Mgmt's mindset wrt to cost for DCI. They lease the jets, guaratee profits, pay for gas, ticketing etc. It doesn't seem like cost is the issue.

Also, I havent jumpseated on a single DCI in the last year or more where the crew was new-hires or even close to 2 year seniority. My last Mesaba ride was with a 14 year Capt and senior FO. That's just my experience.

Personally, I am 100% convinced we could do the 76 seat flying cost effectively and in house.

Additionally, and I have no info but what I was told by crews doing the flying, at American Eagle, I have flown with several crews who had the opportunity to flow up. Why would they not take that opportunity unless they were making a decent living?

 

What AMR was asking had very little to do with matching our massive 70-76 seater outsource orgy. It went waaaaaaaaay further than that. A319 B scale, E190's at the cut throats and unlimited domestic code share with AS and JB (and others?) Basically, almost all narrowbody flying gone. Back in 2001 the grave dancing no talent hack POS's at UAL proposed the complete gutting of narrowbody flying and used the rolled up 1113c newspaper as the "or else". Thankfully for the entire profession, the UAL pilots, even though they gave up an awful lot, called their bluff and finally said "enough is enough, shut it down if you have to you lying liars."

The fact that RJ's have been "scoped off" mainline lists is one of the primary reasons its little real estate bubble happened in the first place. Managements at legacy airlines ordered them just because they could, and just because they were cheap and just because others were ordering them and rewarding themselves with bonuses for doing so. I think Bar's 25 Billion number pretty much proves that. On overpriced, overcommitted, POS bubble-jets. Of course they couldn't work at a mainline "cost structure"...they can't even work at the slaughterhouse floors at the likes of Mesa or Pinnacle. They just don't work at all at anywhere near the extent they've been tried.

They don't outsource their core business because they are savvy; they do it because it is a religion to them and that's how they have been brainwashed to think since right out of high school when they started regurgitating their rote curriculum in pursuit of academic approval which leads to employability. Its certainly not because they're on to something that works so well that it has to be replicated, yet they are (almost all) stuck on stupid with that one particular concept. Its not about the RJ airframe. Its about the outsourcing. If we allowed them to do to our top end what they do to our bottom end, Pinnacle would be taking their 777's and 7ER's into the same bankruptcy they are with their "RJ's".