Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?

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05-19-2012, 06:04 PM

#99871

flap

Gets Weekends Off

Joined APC: Dec 2008

Position: 777 Cap

Posts: 199

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

05-19-2012, 06:05 PM

#99872

Bucking Bar

Can't abide NAI

Joined APC: Jun 2007

Position: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler

Posts: 11,989

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.

-------------

Nothing in the above post has anything to do with current negotiations. I have nothing solid to go on, but I am optimistic that those Representing us have done a good job.

05-19-2012, 06:22 PM

#99873

scambo1

The Brown Dot +1

Joined APC: Jun 2009

Position: 777B

Posts: 7,775

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailingfun

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.

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?

05-19-2012, 09:03 PM

#99874

gloopy

Gets Weekends Off

Joined APC: Jul 2010

Position: window seat

Posts: 12,522

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailingfun

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.

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".