I'm not against the idea of a production balance. In fact, that's great. I just think we need to diversify how its measured.

We need protections in ESKs and BHs, as well as per theatre and per individual agreement. Simply going to a global BH balance could theoretically work, but only if what we got was an all scenario slam dunk gain. I don't see that in any case. IMO the only reason the company wants this is for massively increased flexibility, and the only reason they want that is to reduce DL pilots and DL metal in the aggregate long term all things considered.

I could maybe vote for that if our "share" was eye wateringly amazing, but we all know its not going to be.

 

Not sure I follow (it may be that you know more of our current position than I do) There is much greater diversity to our scope measures than other air carriers have in their section 1.

• Section 1 B. 46. measures in hulls & weight
• Section 1 D. 9. measures in domestic block hours
• Section 1 N. measures in number of round trip flights to Australia & NZ
• Section 1 P. 4. measures in equivalent available seat kilometers for U.S., Europe, Russia and French Polynesia
• Section 1 R. measures in global wide body available seat kilometers

and then we have economic limits like

• 1 E. 2. a. to c. limiting codeshare sales to < 40% on a pair of segments between a city pair
• 1 E. 2. e. requiring minimum Pacific Flying on a Block Hour basis to codeshare

While these are complicated to measure and understand (for those who don't do it a lot) I like measuring different metrics which act like cross webbing which makes the barrier stronger, providing redundancy and strength.

Also, while not particularly transparent, these arrangements should mirror the company's commercial agreements. In both of Delta's scope failures, which I have analyzed extensively, ALPA negotiated provisions which conflicted with the company's preexisting contracts with vendors and partners.

To get this together we need the negotiating committee with relevant subject matter experts, to obtain and model the company's commercial agreements as scope language is written. Better yet, to have ALPA participate with the company as these commercial agreements are written. That is proactive engagement which has a terrible name now, but which could be the key to truly beneficial, strong, scope progression and protection.

I prefer an alternative idea to Heiko's Global Block Hour floor as a backup for a failing 1 P. 4. As a junior pilot who sees opportunity in the Delta / Virgin partnership, I like the idea of widebody growth.We could potentially gain greater growth by adjusting 1 R. (Global Widebody balance with Virgin) upwards. Logically, Heiko's plan might secure protection. Logically, my suggestion seeks to secure widebody growth earlier if Virgin grows. Delta controls Virgin's network and has the ability to control growth.

The company's logic in the 1 P. 4. grievance was that Delta's flying was reallocated globally and no pilots lost their jobs or were harmed. Heiko's logic adopts that explanation (and it is a reasonable explanation) but there are quality of life issues involved in the European theater protection (Budapest or Brazil? Prague or Manaus?).

Certainly not taking a swipe at Heiko's idea. He is a smart man and in the end I will evaluate scope as I always do; protecting jobs. I expect one way or another we will improve scope in this contract.

 

Why is it that American and United can support all those widebody flights and we can't? We need our partners to do our flying.

That should scare all our new pilots to their core.

THE RJS ARE SAVING OUR BACON!

We are making the same scope concessions over and over and over again.

Where will that lead?

 

Do you really think you can hold your breath and put that genie back into the bottle? Even you cannot be that naive.

Of course you do have that agenda thingy.

 

We can and do. That is the fallacy of your position. Look up each airlines total international block hours. All three airlines are very close. Delta if you go back 30 years has shown far more growth in international. It started way behind. You might also wonder if UAL and AMR have to many seats in some markets and that is part of the reason their yields and profits are worse then Delta. Do we have the right fleet and they have the wrong fleet? Profit is the endgame so I would suggest we might have a better fleet mix.