Look on the bright side -- at least they're asking us about potential concessions this time around. :p

Um... qu'est-ce que c'est this DPA you speak of... and what in the world does it have to do with any thing of which I am speaking?

I guess things where different way back when I was on probation... back then we mostly listened and learned... then after that first year we knew everything. :p

Collective bargaining, which as you say was provided to us by Congressional legislation, gives us significantly greater leverage during negotiations, but we still have no choice but to negotiate against an opponent who has no obligation at all, other than to negotiate in "good faith," whatever that means.

That is the essence of a free market system. Collective bargaining has simply served to give us substantially greater negotiating power within that system.

So, a pilot at SWA or FedEx who has seven days of vacation and bids a reserve line gets what? Assuming a standard domestic reserve line of 4 on 3 off, doesn't he too wind up with only 4 fewer on call days for those 7 days of vacation?

I have no idea -- I'm just asking. That is certainly the way it worked at Delta before PBS.

Not at all. The category began the month with just enough pilots to satisfy the manning formula, plus whatever buffer the company chose to use. Every pilot in the category began the month with a full schedule, regular or reserve.

How does the fact that two of them are able to drop half their lines each, whether into open time due to excess reserves or to other pilots, create the need for a third pilot?

Again, I just don't see it. These pilots are only able to drop trips into open time if there is excess staffing. During peak flying periods, the likelihood of that is usually slim.

Staffing is predicated on known flying at the beginning of the month and historic reserve usage, and the reserves required formula is also based on historic reserve usage. The more reserves fly, the more reserves are required, both in staffing and in the PCS formula. At the end of the day, the system becomes self-limiting as to the number of pilots who can drop a substantial amount of time without picking up something else.

A strike vote is a different animal. If a strike vote doesn't pass by 90%+ the strike won't work. By the time a TA goes to memrat the negotiation is done, the only thing that would affect negotiations is a majority no vote and 50%+1 puts it into effect.

If we can agree the company is looking for a 50%+1 vote, a 63% vote is a pretty big loss for them.

I'm not sure what being on probation has to do with this conversation.

Agreed. DALPA should send out an email every time the company announces good financial news. "The pilots at Delta would like to congratulate Delta Air Lines for another record quarterly profit." Maybe even take an add out in the USA Today. That kind of thing gives the impression that everyone is on the same team. Don't know if it would help negotiations later, it it couldn't hurt.

Really? How many people have you spoken with who haven't taken the survey? Virtually none of the people I've flown with since the survey opened had bothered to look at it. Last week I asked my captain and LCP if they had taken the survey and neither had. I've been surprised by the indifference to the survey. Small sample size, but the survey extension isn't surprising based on what I've seen.

What I was getting at is vacation value. Let's talk SWA. 2 weeks of vacation gets you the full month off or prob greater than 70 TFPs depending on if you value time off or money, and seniority weighs a little on effectiveness since it is based on what you can bid and touching trips. It is obviously hard to compare apples to oranges, but I would say SWA vacation would be valued, on average, to be about twice what DAL gets.

Accept it or not, and someone from SWA can weigh in, but I'm standing here with two SWA pilots who I know very well.

Basically what I am saying is there is plenty of ammo out there to provide leverage to improve our vacation system if the data is presented correctly. T says he thinks it's great and he's happy.

There are a couple of things you're not factoring in. First most categories even today are manned above the formula. The second is that a senior pilot bidding good trips can drop down to zero even in a poorly manned category with ease. In the end if the average pilot flies fewer block hours the company will need more bodies.

You are completely ignoring the Swapboard "pickup" option and the Qualified Personal Drop (QPD).

Your statement assumes that trips will only be dropped from a pilot's schedule if there are surplus reserves available versus required in DBMS.

No matter how undermanned, a senior pilot flying high-time turns or sweet 2-day trips can easily get rid of them via the swapboard or having someone pick them up via white slip. The white slip limit of ALV+15 and the swapboard limit of ...only FARs!....enables this to happen.

Whether good, bad, or neither, the company does not like the idea that a pilot could drop his schedule close to zero for the month but still receive the benefits of a full time employee.

THAT said, I would vote against any TA with a minimum "must fly" provision to it (and I think that SWA has something like that, though I could be wrong). The bottom line is that the number of guys who will do this are relatively few, and whatever the company is losing in "productivity" with one guy, they are getting elsewhere with another. I think that they are willing to eat the "full time benefits for part-time flying" cost.

I truly don't think the company is even talking about this--sounds like more speculation to me.