I have made it crystal clear that I think their RJ 'need' is a throwaway item. But ya'll are getting... again... wrapped all up in something that is going away, and are willing to pay dearly (to use the term time value of concessions) to prevent something that will die on it's own accord. We did it before, and we'll do it again.

And nothing is forever in this business.

I would also get a speed restriction in your section one as there are two 44 seat supersonic passenger jets in development, one is funded by Airbus, and due out in less than 5 years.

We will have to disagree here. I trust the wisdom of the Pilot group. Did you completely forget about the smack down the MEC received after trying to pull off exactly what you say above?

The days of the MEC/NC putting out one sided information are clearly over. They are committed to a Pro/Con paper and as we have seen last year even if they don't there will plenty of Pro/Con thoughts out via social media.

A good deal will pass and sell itself. A crap deal will go down in flames (again) no matter how hard it is sold.

Scoop

Edit: I said "The days of the MEC/NC putting out one sided information are clearly over." I just viewed the UPS- DAL comparison on the DALPA site, I now retract that statement. Apparently the MEC does not seem to learn from past mistakes.

And yet, despite "better" scope clauses, the Fokker100s and DC-9s are gone anyway. Did RJs at DAL cause that, or economics?

UAL and AA pilots have done great things, and also not so great things over the years in terms of "holding the line" and all that.

First of all you are preaching to the choir. As I said I was furloughed along with 1310 other DAL Pilots, in my opinion, as a direct result of a very poor Scope clause.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "my generation." Scope was a failure before I was hired and got worse real quickly. I lived through a wasted decade and was furloughed due to selling out scope when guys were on the street, DCI was hiring thousands, and DAL was parking mainline jets right and left. Excuse me if I don't see more 76 seaters as a crisis now when everything is 180 out from the last decade. The scope line is firmly drawn and the 100 seat jets are going to mainline. We held the line at 76 seats. Small Jet scope is the last war - JVs and Codeshares are the 800 lb gorilla now.

We have a different opinion of improving small jet scope. In my opinion if we fly a greater number of passengers via mainline and less via DCI we are improving Scope.
I voted yes on C-2012 and think that was a Scope win. We are hiring as quick as we can and new guys are achieving upgrades in times unheard of with "my generation" of hires.


Furthermore you say:

That can change in the blink of an eye! Remember the financial crisis of 2008 and age 65?


Well now this sounds exactly like the argument the MEC was using in trying to sell the POS TA-15. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) - remember? We better approve the TA because things could get worse.

Finally if this did happen and we were still negotiating do you think we would have more or less leverage?

Scoop

Interesting opinion....the reason why I started this thread is that things have changed immensely from just a year ago in the regional world and this new contract will probably have more of an effect on that change (for better or for worse remains to be seen). I have talked to guys at my regional (9E) that want the C-series here. They are obviously older and want the job security. Us younger guys want more to be brought in-house because it hopefully means more better paying mainline jobs. Either way it is a very interesting time in this industry...

Scope clauses are read as permitted flying, the longer it gets, the worse it gets. The strongest section one that could ever be achieved is a blank one.

Scope is everything.

Why is it that no negotiating capital is being spent on tightening scope? Why must the position be "can't budge"?

Why not make ATL budge and recapture that scope? It's like running a race and shooting to finish second.

It's the same mistakes over and over at our mainline carriers. Forgetting scope to capture the highest hourly rates for bragging rights. What am I missing?

Complicating the issue, is the fact that some of the regionals actually own a piece of Delta's market share. If they give that flying up, it goes back to the government for re-bid, thus due to anti-trust, Delta potentially loses that market share forever. Those gates owned by Skywest in ATL are a big deal, you could move a whole new airline in there with that number of gates.

I think that the C-series/up gauging strategy would naturally bring more of the flying in house. IIRC every year since 2012? The % of DCI flights has gone down.