fireman- no offense taken, and all input always welcome

Why are some of you happy that Delta will take a 32% pay cut? The whole idea is that we make more money, not less. We have taken the brunt of poor management decisions and our (collective as airline pilot's) pay has decreased in terms of real dollars ever since deregulation.

Meanwhile the average compensation of executives, doctors, judges and lawyers has soared, never mind the obscene bonuses paid to Wall Street leeches that have had management rape pension funds and pay rates to pay for stock buybacks and ill advised aquisitions. Northwest is the best example of this. An airline that had the best balance sheet, most planes paid for, goes CH 11 in heavy debt due in a major way to Chechi and company selling assets to finance their takover.

Look around you. $200,000 per year is dick these days. In Phoenix that gets you the ability to buy a 2000 sq ft house. Not much compared to what it used to.

We should be outraged at the failure of our union to uphold the terms of our contracts. Concessions should never be imposed by a judge who has already shown she is out of touch with reality.

Good Luck DAL Pilots, Someone has to draw the line in the sand. I just found out my 23.9% pay cut starts tomorrow. Ouch! I think the management at Delta & Northwest are overreaching. I feel your pain.

Hate to tell you this but I know one of your international captains and he works on average 5 days a month and makes well over $200k. I feel for you Delta guys but instead of worrying about pay cuts, you ought to be glad you have a job. From what I am hearing, that may be gone soon also. Face facts here. Your Company is failing. FAILING. It is Bankrupt. I would rather you take a pay cut than have my tax money bail your ass out. That's life. Deal with it.

I don't think so. There's no way even the sharpest contract sharpshooter can get paid so much for so little work. In fact, under the latest contract, there's no way to put in so few days of work, regardless of pay. If your friend really exists, either he's lying to you or you're lying to us.

CVG767A,

One of them has to be an airline analyst.

Even under the best as far as time off, I worked two six day trips to the Orient for a total of twelve in a given month, meaning 18 days off. That only lasted about 10 months for me as they pulled the airplane (747) out of the crew base and I went back to the 777 which gave me much less time off because of where it flew.

Of course for at least one full day after coming home from these Orient flights I wouldn't use power tools or write checks as I was so wiped out. :)

I'm with you, fireman. Our int'l guys typically fly two six-day trips, and it seems like they need a couple of days to recover from each. Of course, this is trans-Atlantic, which I'd guess is less taxing than trans-Pacific flying. On the domestic side, we fly a few more days, but it's a little easier on the body. The pay is the same for domestic and international.

That 777 must have been nice to fly.

Bad news for Delta
 

CVG767A,

The NY to Orient flights were brutal for me. JFK-HKG-JFK non-stops were scheduled 15:55.

NY to Europe were just long enough.

The 777 was my favorite airplane, by far. Have about 1,800 hours on it.

I look forward to the 777, but I don't know if I'll ever see it. We have only 7 or 8 of them, so you need a two digit seniority number to hold a decent schedule on it. I'm about ready to try trans-Atlantic, though; Twenty-four hours in Moscow or Milan is sounding better than fourteen hours in L.A.