LOA for initial training pay fixes?
 

Seems like the company and the pilots would mutually benefit immediately if Delta started helping new hires with initial training pay disparity with, say, United. It's quite a bit of cash to get started the first few months in Atlanta with housing cost, uniforms, per diem all on our own. I'm new, so maybe why it's on my mind, but it seems to me a fairly easy thing to adjust so Delta can keep recruits from going to Denver instead...

This is generally seen as a management problem they can easily solve by paying *all the pilots* appropriately, including the new hires. This comes up from time to time when airlines are struggling to staff appropriately, but I hope most of our new hires will make the decision based on something more substantial than a few months of pay disparity.

Since this is one of the few pieces of leverage available to motivate management to increase our pay during negotiations in which nearly every form of self help is unavailable to us, unions generally refuse management offers to raise pay or offer bonuses to new hires without addressing the problem for every pilot on the list.

If I was management and I had a staffing problem, I would prefer an LOA that only raised new hire compensation. For a pilot group to agree to those changes, especially in contract negotiations, would give away good leverage to get a good contract for all.

When Endeavor (Pinnacle and Mesaba) pilots had staffing problems, they secured $23,000/year annual increases for every pilot on the list. So instead of an extra $23,000 for new hires only, every pilot on their list saw a direct increase of $92,000 over 4 years. From a pilot's perspective, that is the best way to negotiate first year compensation issues.

There should be NO LOAs agreed to by DALPA while in section 6 negotiations. If management needs something put it in the TA ( with accompanying gives to the pilots) and allow all of the members to vote on it...
--Management wants to increase pay and benefits to new hires? What are they willing to give up for that?

Training here at United is pretty lucrative. You get three hours of pay per day, regardless if you are working or not. So you either get 90 or 93 hours of pay per month. Depending on whether it's a 30 or 31 day bid month. On top of that, you get rolling per diem, hotels, and uniforms. If DAL is going to compete for pilot candidates, they are definitely going have to pick it up and pay new hires.

The problem in getting management to make a change is that they are having no real issues. They are retaining a high percentages of pilots they make offers to and attrition is extremely low. They won't offer a fix to a problem they don't have.

You are correct, but the real question is - how long until this starts to change?

I believe it is already starting to change. My takeaway after talking to guys from my previous squadron is DAL has already fell from the overwhelming airline of choice to just another one of the Big Three.

Not a bad place to be with thousands of qualified guys chasing jobs, but I wouldn't be surprised if DAL seeks improvements in this area.

Scoop

Absolutely not. I'm as pro new hire as you can get, but we should never allow management targeted pay raises to help alleviate their self induced staffing crisis. In fact, that is one of the few things that will push them to stop burning billions in worthless buybacks and stop dragging their feet abusing the RLA while United and others pass us by.

If I was in management I would try and negotiate first year compensation increases just prior to everyone knowing there was a real issue trying to attract new hires. Hopefully the pilot group would bite and sign off on increases to new hires only so I could solve the future issues before they come to bear.

Just sayin'...

I agree we should make sure our next contract has much better new hire provisions; however, the company needs it and not us. Don't get me wrong, if I had to I'd happily spend negotiating capital to get improved training pay, better year 1 pay, hotels, and uniforms for new hires. In the current competitive market, this should be a company want or at worst a neutral no-cost to the pilots add-on. We start losing the new hire game to AAL and UAL because our intro package stinks, and the company will want to make it happen. We most definitely don't want to do this as an LOA outside of section 6 negotiations. I know it would sound tempting to you now as a new hire, but for the $5k or so of benefit in year 1, you could be throwing away tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in future earnings.

Short term gains are certainly nice, but in the long run this is a bad idea.