Longevity based pay. Start there.

And there is a difference between doing "the right thing", and throwing yourself on a grenade. We are not at war. We have all been dealt cards of varying nature. At this point I have to worry about rebuilding my retirement. Young guys are gonna have a great one unless they get fired. I am not gonna throw myself on the grenade of paying for RJ flying just so Mesabah can move over here and jump right into the left seat of a C series airplane. Sorry. If that is being selfish, then so be it. Why don't you ax him to throw himself on a grenade so that I can retire with something close to what I was promised when I got here 20+ years ago? Why doesn't all this big talk of unity work in that direction?

 

The 717 was a good idea, but they're already to "small."

 

That's clearly because DCI is the biggest. The others are smaller yet trying to grow. AA tried to find a home for their new large RJ's even in the face of a shrinking 50 seat fleet and couldn't find providers to do it until their last resort CPZ. Even then I think they made a miscalculation. Trans States is one of the most ruthless cut throat bottom feeders around, so they obviously said they could do it to get the deal. CPZ is one of the most stable right now and part of that was the flow through. But more than that was that throughout their entire history until very recently everyone went there for the flow. Even now they see a few grandfathered flow pilots leaving here and there for other places. IMO AA's bet on CPZ includes a lot of assumptions that are false and will not pan out.

UAL is way behind and one of the CHQ "air group" feeders had to pull down capacity as well because of staffing. Yet UEX thinks its going to grow! LOL!

Back to DCI, they have agressively started a process of removing a lot of pilot block hours by up gauging (at DCI and at mainline) and its still no where near enough.

I don't see any "express system" or whatever you want to call it that is safe from the inevitable staffing crisis that is already upon them. All of them.

 

There will be no arbitration because anything can happen and you know that. DCI pilots will never even get to be in a position to get one day more seniority than the bottom mainline pilot hired today. Arbitration gives them that chance, and they have nothing to lose in trying so they will. A staple is the only way, however any kind of deal that allows them to even vote on it will be painted as coersion by the sue happy free loaders looking for a windfall, so it won't get to that point either.

New hires at the bottom of the list is the only way. A flow through is the closest thing to "one list" as we're going to get with a separate pilot group at a regional.

 

Yes, but, longevity where? It is all Delta.

I started at ASA in 1999 and hired in at Delta in 2007. There were ASA rampers, managers and gate agents who followed exactly my career path. Their longevity date is 1999. Mine is 2007. The only difference is that pilots are treated differently than ALL other employee groups.

So my EtD Jumpseater is promised a Delta job. He has already interviewed and already been given the job. It is his. What is his longevity date when he transfers to Delta?

His Chief Pilot is Barry Wilbur. What is his longevity date? What about when he transfers back to Delta?

What if the Endeavor pilot gets time off for cause? What is his longevity date then? If he has employment rights at Delta, who represents him? What about a Delta pilot who flows down? Could a disagreement with an Endeavor manager cost a Delta pilot his job?

This whole "pregnant but not really pregnant" issue is nonsense and on the face of it, unfair.

 

TSquare,

I am making the case you want to hear. The two points are:

• The Delta MEC has achieved gains by facilitating unity. We have the illustration of the gains made in our JPWA and subsequent post merger negotiations. We can build on that trend.
• Large aircraft are underpaid relative to their productivity. Small jets are over paid relative to their productivity. Simply restoring traditional "pay for productivity" models would skew pay favorably towards the 767 and up crowd (which now includes the 737-900 and 321 replacement aircraft). Even the MD88 gets no where near 3x CRJ200 rates at equal longevity.

 

A Pinnacle pilot is 100% separate until that pilot gets a seniority number at DL and shows up on property. Their longevity will reset 100% as it should.

To get to this point, even for the extremely privlidged and lucky among us, takes a lot of work and a lot of years. Is it "fair" that a military or corporate pilot (or ALPA pilot at a United regional…or even United mainline) should have to start over if they come to DL even though a ramp agent transferred? Yes, it is.

Even if the "Sweet spot" of the group is 76 CA as you've said (and it very well may be, who knows) you're not going to find any support to retroactively grandfather regional pilots with their original DOH for anything. Trying to "me too" it off the rampers isn't going to work. Even if we did, so "new hire" classes are full of some guys at top scale pay and others at new hire pay? Even internal DL employees have to start over with pay when becomming pilots. There is no way regional FO's are going to walk into class day one top scale with 5 weeks vaca and 270 hours sick time.

 

I don't care about how rampers and flight attendants figure seniority. You don't either, because we ARE different.

All that other stuff you are railing about is minutae that will have to be worked out between dALPA and management. And I couldn't care less about Barry Wilbur.

Longevity pay would start when you stepped foot inside the DAL training center with a DAL badge. In simplest terms.

 

Gloopy,

On (1) you are right and that is far beyond my ask. In fact a longevity reset is required, economically, for the model to work.

On (2) you are wrong. Within several months of my hire date there were a hand full who did walk in the door with 5 weeks and whatever the sick allotment was then. I might could have done it, but had no idea it was possible.

Despite these distinctions, we agree completely on what needs to happen. Part of the reason your posts have not been responded to as much as TSquare's is agreement with your points.

 

Not really, because again, you keep throwing the word "productivity" in there. That is a non factor. Push throttles, get paid. Period. I really don't want to discuss this because it is a waste of time. *sarcasm alert* I hope Carl makes $1000/hour next contract, because.. well.. he makes so much money for the company, and he deserves it.