Keep telling yourself that. UAL/AMR premium wide bodies dwarf DAL. Some 350's delayed. JFK to CDG, AF has a little more lift. 747 will be gone. Leaving 18 777's. While we can't find enough foreign carriers to invest in. The only reason we're not in bed with the ME3 is that they don't want to.

 

Premium wide body difference between us and UAL/AMR is a pay issue. If we get the 330/764/787 all banded at the top rate like the UAL/AMR that issue goes away.

Speaking of dwarfing, DL profits dwarf UAL. Take away the hedge losses they dwarf AA as well. AF/KLM is barely profitable.

Some 350s are indeed delayed due to poor international markets. A330s have also been but on domestic routes like SFO and SJU because of it. Anything that keeps our profit sharing higher works. United has accelerated their 747 retirements as well due to poor international markets.

 

We have a lot of expectations that play heavily in our favor in most cases. Pay expectations are a big one of course. But even in this hypothetical case, pay is pay. Having four stripes because you think its cool isn't much to hang your hat on, so the smaller (and almost definitely lower paying) airline using just the pay argument from being captain would lose hard in making that case.

Of course it depends on what the pay rates are, but I'd assume if we did a total LBP blended scale (which I'm not advocating for and which I don't foresee happening anytime soon if ever) then that table would by its very nature still be above the smaller theoretical acquisition and from an earnings perspective would dwarf their hypothetical lower pay faster upgrade model.

Then comes into play all the other expectations, like retirements (for the next 10 years we're at or neat the top of the industry for that), retirement contribution, profit sharing, work rules and QOL, etc that all buff pay in the first place as well.

While the other smaller airline might attempt to say "a captain is a captain, full relative or bust!" I don't think that will work out for them at all. When presented with the mountains of evidence that career expectations here are significantly higher, separate AC pay, bands or even blended LBP wouldn't hurt us IMO. Unless we roll over as part of an ALPA conspiracy to sacrifice our group to some broader "see what ALPA membership gets you!" campaign of course. But even that is likely a small threat since JB, VX and NK all recently joined anyway.

As for Hawaiian I don't see that happening. They are horribly in debt (crushing debt for their size) and other than a very tiny number of slots they bring absolutely zero value to the table compared to doing it on our own.

 

The only reason we are so far above the threshold is because it was negotiated below the level of flying done at the time. How s that gonna work in the future?

 

Your reply has a lot of pro-management spin and presents an inaccurate assessment. China Eastern recently announced a large increase in flying to the U.S. We fly about 33% of the Virgin Australia JV. How's our AF/KLM JV production balance looking? And what does the LAX 777 base opening have to do with anything?...we had 18 777s before and we still have 18 777s now.

Yeah, let's band all the 330/764/787 together. Remind me again how many 787s we have and what the delivery schedule looks like for the remainder of that fleet. BTW, it's not all about the pay, there are many QOL issues that are affected by the shrinking gauge of our fleet.

You talk about "poor international markets" yet China Eastern is expanding by double digits to the U.S. market. I believe AeroMexico recently announced some impressive expansion to the U.S. market as well.

 

Complete hyperbolic argument. Not saying you are wrong necessarily but your missive here proves zilch.

 

Not sure why you care, you stated you don't want to fly international. UAL has 75 777's, 14 more coming, 30 787's, 21 more coming. AMR has 70 777's, 20 787's more coming, A350's coming. Hey, we do have our VA deal and we do most of the flying, Yay.

 

So what? That is all a management decision. Go interview at UAL if you think you made such a big mistake. There is nothing you can do no matter how hard you jump up and down and whine about it to make DAL management buy that kind of fleet if they don't want/need it. You are just crying about what somebody else has and that has zero relevance to our negotiations. zero.

 

Fleet composition has a direct correlation to Scope. And our pay scales are based on gauge size (rightfully so). DALPA likes to hold up our 777 pay rate as a comparison to other legacy pilot contracts. So, given those points and the fact that wide body fleet size affects every pilot's career progression, I'd say that information has huge relevance to our contract negotiations. For you to suggest that someone with maybe decades at this company just saunter over to another seniority based pilot group mid career is an asinine idea - I won't go into the reasons why because I think you're smart enough to figure out the reasons for yourself.

Lastly, this is the reason why profit sharing is non-negotiable.

 

The problem isn't so much that UAL has more large wide bodies than we do. "We" have a lot, its just not our seniority list that flies them. For some reason foreign airlines, supposedly barely making a profit if at all, are vastly preferred in the "Skyteam" network over DL pilots, who have to claw tooth and nail to get "half" of the flying, which is generally thought to be a long term 47%-ish share.

So while the DALPA "move along nothing to see here" narrative of "we can't control what planes the company buys" is technically true, there's way more to it than that.

Its time for fair block hour and ESK metrics in our PWA, with strict penalties for non compliance, as well as it being time to define "half" as 53% for the next decade or two.