You know the other side of the argument is there will be some ultimatums. That could be no concessions. For me its full retro and if you want my buddy passes you can have them as the concession.

 

That's called rationalizing. The fact that you are doing it for management says a lot. Try this rationale. There is no way this gets dragged out and pilots let some of their accrued pay go. The longer it goes the more they are entitled to, and the harder it is to walk away from. 100% retro.

 

Have you looked at staffing and the future we will be working with? Good luck dropping trips. QOL is the only real benefit. If you have more time off you can sell that time at a premium.

Once its gone good luck getting QOL back in an environment where productivity is King. QOL is not for sale. I want a 65 hour line that pays me what I make now, not forced to work 95 and get paid double.

 

Staffing is pretty good in a lot of categories. Marketing once again bumped the narrow body block hours up. They increased the hiring and will catch up. Then guys will be on here screaming they can't get greenslips and their family is starving!

 

This.

I can't drop trips now. Or even swap with the pot, due to staffing and capped reserve days.

 

The cultural difference with regards to retro is not as big as you think. Both premerger pilot groups negotiated retro pay in the past. In 1998 the NWA pilots negotiated 3.5% retro for the two years between the amendable date and date of signing. In may of 2001 the Delta pilots negotiated 3.8% retro (with some exceptions such as Express) for the one year between the amendable date and date of signing.

Recent negotiations have yielded signing bonuses, which as you correctly state is more than zero. The FDX pilot contract became amendable in 2010, they signed a 2%/year, two year extension. They eventually got a 6 year contract ratified 5-years after the amendable date with a signing bonus of $125 million dollars, or roughly $30,000/pilot for the entire 5 years past the amendable date, or put another way $6,000/year retro. Total cumulative gains achieved over the 11 years this contract contains is 33.9%.

SWAPA achieved a TA in 2015, three years after the amendable date, with retro of approximately $15,000/pilot for the three year wait, $5,000/year retro. That TA was rejected and they are now four years past the amendable date.

We're just 5 months past our amendable date, full and meaningful retro is still possible, but the longer this drags out the less likely full retro becomes, if by full retro we are talking about 22% on the amendable date, which is our current table position. What's full retro 3 years from now, is it 22% +7% + 7% + 1% DC/year?

 

Reserves should be looked at in aggregate for a given geographical area. For example: Let's say NY/ATL/CVG/DTW all have -in total - 300 reserves in a given category. If the number of required reserves for all of those bases added together is less than 300, anybody in any base can drop a trip until that number drops below the required number of reserves. My logic here is that the company uses ATL guys to DH to DTW to cover a trip, we should get credit for that capability. Why is it OK for the company to bump a paying passenger for their convenience but we have to suck it up because they want to staff the entire airline out of ATL?

 

There is a difference between must have items and a proposal that is nothing but ultimatums. The reality is that everything is negotiable.

 

 

DAL Pilots got Full Retro the last time we went past the amendable date (C-2000). So I am not sure that you "know the answer" to your own question.

This also does not mean that we automatically achieve full retro this time either. If we get a contract within a year I would say full retro is a slam dunk. 1-2 years probably. Longer than that and it gets a lot tougher.

Scoop