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Quote:

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 1725763)

Alan

Love the way you think. I hope you are right.

In the DPA survey CDOs fail 68% to 38% so far.

98% want to keep our profit sharing where it is or increase it. 92% do not want to trade profit sharing for hourly increases like C2012.

Do you believe we will not disregard the line pilots and reduce profit sharing again?

Jerry

You are basing your opinion of that on a biased survey, just so you know.

But you DO know that, it just serves your agenda purposes better. I am not actually saying that it isn't accurate, or even true, just that it is biased. You cannot prove that it is a majority opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 1725907)

1,100 Delta pilots so far and somehow that is biased.

I find pilots to be pretty independent, especially on the PWA.

You in particular, just look at how anything effects you personally and the rest be damed.

No you want us to believe somehow these 1,100 pilots were brainwashed??

The line pilots have spoken Tsquare and reducing profit sharing is off the table.

Jerry

Quote:

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 1725911)

It's not even debatable whether the DPA survey is biased. It is clearly biased and unless the authors have no familiarity with statistics they would say so themselves. Only Delta pilots who go to the DPA website participate and since not all Delta Pilots go to the DPA website it isn't representative of the pilot group. You can argue how exactly that bias affects results but you can't argue the DPA survey isn't biased...unless you have no familiarity with statistics.

For what it's worth the ALPA survey suffers from a similar bias.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 1725911)

I agree. I told my reps that profit sharing is off the table for THIS contract. The next one might be different.

The DPA AND the ALPA surveys are by definition biased. The only ones that answer them (unless you get 100% participation) are answering because they have an issue that they deem important enough to take the time to fill it out. That interjects a bias in the survey. It's neither good or bad, it is a bias. Step back from the ledge Jerry. See it for what it is, merely a tool, it is not a true representation of the pilot group unless a statistically significant number of pilots answer it. I do not know what that number is, but I'll betcha it is more than 1100 in a voluntary survey. If it were a random poll, you might have a good sample.

And I am not even versed in statistics. This is just logical. FOr example, I;ll betcha those same 1100 pilots like what TC has done re the doughnut holes organization. Is that a mandate? Methinks not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon (Post 1725919)

I agree with you. As a matter of fact, the more I think about it, the less valid I believe any of these surveys to be. They are a tool, yes, but to put much value in them as a representation of the group is questionable, and might even be harmful in a sense. I did ask my rep if a poll would be done and he said that it would. All the doughnuts need to get their names on the top of that list so they can skew the true metrics. :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler (Post 1725481)

Saying any more than I've said would out him and that's not right. There's plenty of reps that have been voted out and went straight to MEC admin positions.

Carl

Welcome back Carl!

I have previously learned that different people mean different things when they refer to the "MEC Administration". Some mean it to be the Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary and the 2 MEC Administrators. Others lump every committee chairman into that category as well. I'm sure others have even different meanings when they use the term. What exactly do you include when you (Carl) say "MEC admin positions"?

Just curious, so I know what you mean when you say it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver (Post 1725101)

Well okay... But that seems to me like a pretty ineffective way of looking at it. If you lost 42% in an investment, and 10 years later you were still 34% down (which means you still need 51% to get back to even), would you think you'd made "significant progress" toward recovering the lost value of the investment? Would it boil down to you are where you are and not where you want to be? Or would you consider that maybe what you've been doing isn't working?

I doubt they'd be much smaller, if any. But even if they were... would you rather the numbers be where they are now and give up on the idea of restoration? Or would you rather see at least some effort to try and recover what was lost? What we have now is clearly not an effort to restore our profession and our careers. It's an effort to get "the most we can at every opportunity"... as defined and judged by the MEC without much regard for what the pilots they represent think. And that definition they're using is clearly much lower than restoration. The thing that really makes it bad is that we've set expectations and set the tone that we're pretty happy with our progress and that we do not expect anything like restoration going forward. That Lee Moak interview in Bloomberg/Business Week is a perfect example of what I'm talking about!

I truly hope I'm wrong, but I don't think that "conversation" (if it even takes place) will be taken seriously in 2015 either. Reference RA's quote about labor unrest being off the table and, again, Lee Moak's quotes in the Bloomberg/Business Week article. We have no credibility in terms of asking for restoration. We have a 10 year long track record demonstrating that we don't expect anything of the sort.

I don't think you can put forth an argument for the kinds of improvements it would require for restoration without including the context of where we were and where we are now. Otherwise, it just sounds completely unreasonable.

So I don't see how you can have it both ways. Either your objective is restoration, which means very large, what would normally be considered "unreasonable" increases to recover from the unreasonable cuts we took. Or you consider those unreasonable cuts to in fact be "reasonable" and to have established a new baseline from which we only seek reasonable improvements. The latter, of course, is where DALPA has been coming from and, by all indications, is continuing to go. And I've seen nothing from DALPA to indicate a change in that paradigm.

Are you familiar with the sunk cost fallacy? It's an economic concept that basically says you should make decisions about a current situation based on what you have already invested in the situation. A classic example of the sunk cost fallacy is the "double your bet" strategy in blackjack. The theory is if you double your bet after each lost hand you will eventually come back to even. The problem is it's a terrible strategy because the odds that you run out of money before winning a hand is not zero. The money a blackjack player has given the casino doesn't change his odds of winning the next hand.

Anyway, from what I can tell your entire argument for contract improvements is (paraphrasing) that you've given enough and you want some specific part of what you've given back. That is a text book example of the sunk cost fallacy.

I've seen you accuse other posters of accepting bankruptcy as a "reset". It wasn't a reset, it was just something that happened. It certainly sucked but it has very little or nothing to do with the next contract. Bankruptcy is the lost hand in the anecdote above. You can double your bet or you can play the odds with the hand you are dealt. In the case of the next contract the odds are favorable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeineLodge (Post 1725717)

This won't affect any of us, but it's the right thing to do.

87. How important is it to provide a hotel room for a new-hire pilot's training?

We need to take care of our newhires. For all the good things about coming to work here, it's incredible to me that Delta doesn't currently provide a hotel room for the duration of training. I'd even be in favor of a hotel room bank where ATL guys (myself included) could donate their unused rooms to be allocated to newhires. I don't need a hotel room on VA Ave for a month for IQ, but a newhire that doesn't live here certainly does.

Please keep them in mind as you fill out this question.

AMEN to that!!!!!!!! Long overdue in my opinion.

FWIW, new-hire pilots Endeavor receive single-occupancy lodging throughout training. It would be greatly appreciated as a Delta new-hire, but wouldn't happen in time for me, anyway. Sorry to intrude. I'll go back to lurking. :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 1725763)

Alan
Do you believe we will not disregard the line pilots and reduce profit sharing again?

No idea, but I'm guessing that our reps' decision on that will be more based on the DALPA survey than the other one. I strongly suggest that everyone participate accordingly and make your voices heard!!