New Delta scope thread
 

To keep from infecting other threads with a decades long scope fight, lets make a new thread.

Everyone crap in their hands and go for a Pitcher's wind up.

If Joe Merchant shows up, everyone will know where to aim :D

Ok, let me start. Historically, we have sucked. But, that does not mean that we should continue to suck. We need to elect leaders who refuse to go about things differently with a different mindset.

While talk is cheap, it is a beginning. But, eventually after there is nothing left to say or plan, there must be action.

I think what will get managements attention is if we elect "new" leaders. And by "new" I mean somewhat more radical. You know, like how George Washington and John Adams were....:rolleyes:

New K Now

Thanks!!!!!!

Bucking, i sent the resolution package to my reps for them to read over along with my take on things, Again. I also sent it to everyone i know for them to get educated and educate others. Spread the word. keep up the good work.

Help me out here. Can you show me a single example in recent memory of "radical leadership" at a company losing money producing positive results?

UAL? Nope. They've now got a court order hanging over them.
APA? Nope. How many are still on furlough since 2001?
AAA? Nope. They've got a busted union, double bankruptcy payrates, and no hope in sight.

How about the not so radicals? The ones that conduct business.

CAL? Gone through the least pain of the majors post 2001.
SWAPA? Industry leading rates and a new contract (even though they're shrinking next year).
DAL/NWA? Payraises to merge, equity distribution, signficant retirement enhancements, all while losing money.

I think I'd stick with the businessmen.

Problem is there won't be any Delta pilots left if those "businessmen" keep caving in on scope.
But hey - the last Delta pilot will be very well paid as he watches that Mesaba 787 depart for Tokyo.


I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!
And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Barry Goldwater


http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/t.../prototype.jpg

It isn't a military/civilian argument.

How do you spell RJDC again?;)

I guess you've never been the recipient of a PID petition, nor had your union "brothers" refuse to sign a mutual support resolution (non union Skywest pilots did, however), or oppose the hiring of furloughed ALPA pilots unless they resigned their seniority.

Did all those guys "get it?"

Now a few on here want to make the problem worse by adding Compass to the NWA/DAL list. Sailingfun went through the litany of problems with that idea, so it's not necessary to rehash in detail, but answer his primary concern: What prevents whipsawing new mainline Delta pilots (former CPZ) against lower cost regional 76 feeder carriers?

For extra credit you can answer what happens to the flowdown expense/protection when those guys are added to our list, how it impacts the Ford-Cooksey settlement restrictions, and what the legal rights of the other wholly owned carriers would be. Then we can get warmed up with the consequences of your proposed "solution.":eek:

Scope is important. CPZ to mainline isn't the answer. It's a feelgood emotional response to scope.

If you go through bankruptcy again that might happen.

Maybe you can point to an example in the US Airline industry of great scope that worked for a network carrier.

AAA? Two bankruptcies later it doesn't appear that it did.
UAL? At least the BAE 146's are gone.
NWA? Again, at least the BAE 146's are gone. They did bring a larger percentage of large RJ's versus fleet size to the new operation with Compass.
AMR? How are those nearly 2000 furloughed guys doing? But they've got scope...
CAL? Probably the most effective clause out there so far.

I lived the dream with Delta Express. All aircraft that size were on a single payscale, but it was substantially below the per seat cost of the next largest mainline airframe. We had to buy the payraise for the airplane out of our total contract, and within three years they were all gone.

lather, rinse, repeat...

I think integrating Compass could be a good thing if it is paired with change in the scope language. All future 51+ seat (or 71+ if you'd prefer) flying is flown by Delta pilots on the Delta seniority list. As contracts expire they are flown by Delta pilots.

Delta already has 153 DC-9-10 equivalent "RJ"s flying for them. That could mean an eventual 1500 more Delta pilots.

False. The last class was hired July 16, 2001. Subsequent classes were cancelled due to the economy, not scope or the manning formula. You might recall that Delta sat down 56 L1011 TriStars and over 100 727's in very short order. 9/11 didn't help.

This is where you come into the spin zone. Please review for the group the timeline of each of these decisions, realizing they were all before you were on the property. For refresher, LOA 46 was 11/11/04, and a bankruptcy avoidance attempt. LOA 51 was 6/1/06 and was a bankruptcy generated agreement under the next to last day of the 1113 process. You might want to review when 70, then 76 seaters were allowed as well. Btw, for a guy who wants to staple CPZ, how were you going to complete the merger with NWA while limiting the scope of their existing contract, order book and fleet?

That merger is what increased your job security and gave you personally increased furlough protection.

Sort of...ASA had hubs in DFW and ATL, CMR had hubs in MCO and CVG, SKW was in SLC (second RJ operator behind CMR) and LAX.

Not exactly. The post merger DCI has more pilots than the premerger DAL group, but not the post merger DAL group. Mainline has 750 aircraft and DCI from all operators has about 700 in Delta service. While they make up the departure percentages that you point out, they do so while flying less than 20% of the ASM's.

Again, not exactly. Point to a full service network airline pilot group that "held the line" on narrowbody scope and show me their mainline growth. It is very presumptous to assume that you would be looking at upgrade vice furlough as in AMR's case, and you acknowledge that in your route viability comment in your next paragraph.

Rereading your over 2000 posts show that you do have passion, but you reserve your acidic commentary only for your co-workers that make up our pilot union. I guess I don't find that surprising, but that is what I find offensive. If you were an equal opportunity wall painter, then I'd respond differently.

And I do feel the same way regarding improving the quality of the career. The last word is yours, as I fly early tomorrow.

Guys,
We are arguing over tactics. We all agree, or at least I think we do, that Scope is a huge issue to our Pilot group. So lets start thinking strategically and the tactics will follow. I am pleased to see the level of passion the recent Scope relaxation has stirred up. Hopefully this along with our correspondence will give our Union leadership a clear idea of what we desire – no more Scope relief to the company and to eventually go on the offensive on the Scope issue.

Scoop

I will give part of that to you, but the last two classes were canceled due to the fact that the contract just signed required 300 less pilots. There is no spin to that. Realize that for every 732 and 727 we parked over those years DAL was buying 50 seat jets to fly the lion's share of those routes, as they are doing today.


We both know that furlough protection is paper thin. I know the time line, and for Pete's sake I was giving people the short course. The point is that ASA, OH, SW, and AMR out of LAX were DCI. The next six years proved a total erosion for scope. I know the reason behind it, but it still does not change where we are, and where we need to go.




ASM's do not mean pilot jobs, departures do. It takes five RJ's and 50 pilots to do the job of one 767.
I understand that, but I was talking about DCI pre-merger and you know that. I was getting us to where we were prior to the merger. It is great that we have 2000 pilots more than we did on 9-11, but it took us acquiring the fifth largest airline to get there. That is sad.



I take issue with the last part. I do not like the last move of the 76 seat scope settlement. I do not care how it is spun, it allowed more 76 seat jets than Section 1 of the JPWA initially allowed. Plain and simple. I also and not one that is advocating a new union. I feel that by getting involved and not just voting "yes" for every thing that comes my way, I can effect change. I think that there are many positive points to ALPA, and I am a defender of the process, warts and all. I as well as many others will use the process to effect change.
I am glad you do. I know there are issues with taking 36 RJ's from DCI and putting them on mainline. It would allow over 100 more 76 seat jets. That clause will need to be changed to. Another effective for is to keep CPZ as a separate certificate and just have DAL seniority listed pilots fly em.

I applaud the MEC for getting the merger done. They did something that no other union could do. That does not give them a pass on future issues. The scope issue is one that will continue to bite us as long as we do not address it, and not use it as a bargaining chip. Lowering the scope limit to 70 seats is a start. CPZ on the list is the first start to that process. It also solves the representational issue that the MEC is now dealing with.

Just thinking out loud here... I know we want less DCI and more a/c at mainline. We'd also like to fly those jets at mainline rates. Well, what exactly is a mainline rate?? What is the actual cost of a mainline pilot including benefits ect.. compared to a regional pilot? While the first couple years at skywest were tough in regards to pay, in my opinion, the remaining years I felt I was paid a decent wage/benefits for what I was doing. It did help that I was a making captain pay for 7 years. Did I want more? Of course I did. Was it possible? No, we were competing with Mesa, but thanks to the pilots of Comair my pay went up as we matched their contract dollar for dollar. We all love to stomp our feet and demand to get paid to fly a 76 seat RJ for the same rate as a NW DC-9 pilot. I stomp my feet too. Is it realistic in today's DCI mess we've created, probably not. That leaves us in a position that if we want the flying we need to accept the pay rates that go with those positions. If we did the flying in-house for the current rates would management still balk at the idea? I just don't know what I actually cost Delta to be on property compared to what my cost was at Skywest. Management talks about 'economies of scale'. Skywest management used that line every time we got more 70 and 76 a/c. This allowed us more pay than other regional pilots because our costs were spread out and we had larger revenue generating aircraft. Maybe its time Dalpa took a serious look at payrates and costs that would be acceptable to pilots and managment that brought those aircraft back. Allright, flame away...I deserve to be beaten for the blasphemy about lower pay!!!

Your pay + about 10K a year for your insurance+ your retirement match. There is not much more to it except your sim training that is about the same as any other carrier.

Add to that that our 7-12% margin that DAL pays each DCI carrier above the cost of the operation would more than make up what the differences in our compensation and theirs.

Ok. Please explain how allowing the outsourcing of 125 more narrow body airliners at a commuter contractor brings back 2000 furloughees (plus considering that they are almost all TWA and AA did their normal acquisition thing by buying an airline, then shutting it down).

Waiting breathlessly to be enlightened.

The APA's not giving scope anymore, they're taking it back. Allowing 25 70-seaters was a big mistake to begin with. At the very least that exception is going away. As for the 37 and 50 seat beercans, they can implode under the weight of their own inefficiency.

Anderson's union is being pointed to by the other airline management's as the new "standard" in scope give-aways.

Wheels up, you are exactly right.

I cannot fathom how slowplay could be coming from a mainline perspective. If he is, I hope he gets plenty of education from his fellow pilots on the implications of outsourcing and how "taking back scope" isn't a bad thing...

Agree completely!! In shock that ANY pilot can think protecting scope is a bad thing or something to argue against!! :eek:

I do not think he is arguing protecting scope, just our method.

He has a mainline perspective, just not one I agree with. Well educated on all the ALPA stuff, just on the other side of the fence on this one issue.

I would love to hear the opinion on the latest developments and view point of CPZ et al from the FNWA MEC and LWC reps!

So he must be one of the LEC reps. :)

No I have a really good idea who he is.

Ok, here's your help.

First of all, I didn't say I thought we needed radical leadership. I said we needed our leasership to be, "somewhat more radical." So, I understand that the whole burn the house down attitude is probably too extreme. But, there is a reason I wrote that our leaders need to be somewhat more radical.

As for all of your examples, it seems to me that every one of them is losing their shorts to scope, radical or not. Scope is the title of this thread, by the way. Not who has gotten by over the past few years with the least amount of pain.

There is a concerted effort to chip this profession away, piece by piece. In the end it won't matter how painless we made it for ourselves if the end result is that we as mainline pilots have no bargaining power.

In my opinion, all of the airlines pilots are failing in the area of scope. Our "businessman" attitude, as you call it, is short sighted if it is intentional. Because, where we end up is a place where the airlines don't need a mainline. They just have seperate pilot groups fighting amongst themselves to get the scraps. Oh, and by the way, the contract goes to the lowest bidder.

So, while I am not looking for a union to become overly radical, I would like to see someone push back hard against the encroachments to our flying. It's that important, because eventually we won't have any flying to defend.

New K Now

Until pilots relize we are BLUE collar labor and not White collar labor we will never get ahead. Management does not want to discuss there business plan with us, nor do they want to pay us more than they have too. You can paint NW 400's white with a little bit of red and blue but it does not solve the problem unless the pilots or the wantabe whale pilots hold the line for scope, work rules, and pay.

Heyas,

Just spoke to two of mine last night. They understand fully the criticality of the situation. There are lots of resolutions in the pipline from numerous bases.

If Moak doesn't already have the message, he's about to...

Nu

I am aware of that. I am just curious how your two guys on the mec are thinking. This would come to an MEC vote, and am just curious on where they stand.

To me, this whole argument comes down to first officers who are not happy being first officers, they want to be captains. Understandable. A typical pilot has 30-40 years from the time he gets hired to the time he reaches age 65. Most major airlines have a little more than half their pilots as first officers (crew augmentation). So wouldn't you expect that about half your career should be in the right seat? If you take a 35 year average career, then you should expect about 17-18 years in the right seat, with a fixed number of pilots. So if you want to upgrade sooner than that, then you have to have growth. Most first officers now seem to think that 5 years is the standard time to upgrade. In order for that to continue, an airline would continually have to grow at pretty remarkable rates.

The real cause of change in the industry is the introduction of small jets. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, commuter flying was in prop planes. They were loud, small, uncomfortable and unpopular. Hub and spoke airlines made a lot of money on monopoly markets. For instance, Delta used to have a lock on the market in cities like Columbia, SC. Passengers would not tolerate a long flight on a prop plane to Chicago or Houston or Dallas to connect, so the market was left to Delta. They flew all mainline aircraft to Atlanta and passengers connected from there.

The yields on those monopoly routes were unreal. In fact, Delta charged so much in Columbia that the state of South Carolina funded a startup carrier, Air South, just to try to break the stranglehold that Delta had on that airport. (call sign Khaki-Blue, what's up with that).

Now, along comes the regional JET. Yep a real jet. It goes up high, goes fast, is reasonably quiet and comfortable. Now a passenger can sit on one of those to Chicago or Dallas. Now that market gets fragmented and competitive. Now you can't charge unreal rates and now 75% of your business passengers are flying on other carriers. Now you can't support mainline aircraft on that route anymore, or at least not as many.

This isn't about scope or labor contracts, this is about a disruptive technology (the RJ) that changed the industry in a radical way. How radical? How about AMR, simulated bankruptcy, US Air two bankruptcies, United bankruptcy, Delta bankruptcy, Northwest bankruptcy, Continental concessionary contracts. That seems pretty disruptive to me.

Some think the answer to this is scope. Have better scope and all those mainline jobs will come back. Nope. You can maybe get the RJ pilots to change uniforms and now are mainline pilots, but you won't get what you really want, which is hundreds of more big mainline airplanes (like 737's) to come back so you can make captain at 5 years. The only way to do that is to get Congress to pass a law to make RJ's illegal in the US. Lacking that, then you have to learn to live with these smaller jets.

The question then goes to who flies them. The first officers who are itchy for that fourth stripe probably don't want to be RJ captains because that would be a pay cut. They really don't want to be RJ first officers, for many they have already been there done that. So the question for the union becomes how much leverage do they have or are they going to expend to get these pilots to switch uniforms and now join the mainline ranks. In 2002-2007, nobody had that leverage and you had to fight defensively. The market was changing and you could not negotiate that fact away, certainly not when your company was bleeding cash.

As many have pointed out, pick the carrier with the best scope (AMR?, CAL?, or whoever) and show me what is happening to that carrier in mainline. Both AMR and CAL are losing airframes this year and they have no plans at all to buy 90-110 seat aircraft. So the premise that good scope leads to early upgrade to captain has no real world proof. It is just some "common wisdom" among disaffected first officers that has no wisdom behind it.

I support the reintroduction of 70-76 flying back to mainline. You have to remember that once you do that, you will lose ALL control over how many of those airframes that management gets. Swallow up Compass, great, but now E-175 flying is unlimited. Be careful what you wish for. I am pretty sure that E-175 captain pay is less than 767 FO pay.

What is the end game for this? Consolidation will play a big part. Delta is losing 200 50-seaters in 2008-2009. Mainline flying is pretty static in comparison. It seems that UAL and CAL are slimming down for their wedding that probably will come late this year or early next year. What happens with AMR and LCC is anyone's guess. I am thinking that LCC gets fragmented with about half surviving.

At some point, there will be three or four carriers left. Market fragmentation will decline because there are less players. Delta's strategy right now is to move to higher yields just by having a massive network that goes everywhere. Want to go to Lagos, who do you fly? That will work for a while, but eventually others will catch up. In the end, with fewer carriers and a growing market, you will probably see the minimum gauge get back up to 100 seats, but that is a long way off.

There is no magic bullet to this. Technology has changed and we aren't going back. Remember when travel agents got more money from our tickets than the pilots did? (yep that was true back in the 80's and 90's). Those days are gone too. If you want to recapture 70-76 flying at mainline, I am all behind you. You are only going to do that if you can convince your management that it is in management's interest.

If you think that you can do this by being "tough" or "radical" or "hard line" then dream on. That is a bunch of self delusion by frustrated pilots that imagine themselves as the sun drenched gun fighter going off to slay management. Go read the Railway Labor Act and then come back and give me your "radical" theories. Who are the highest paid pilots now? Southwest, right? What a bunch of radicals. SWAPA does not even have a Strike Committee. Seems their measured, thinking approach has served their pilots pretty well.

Good luck with your hard lines and LEC resolutions. How about go develop a business plan for recapturing this flying and you will be much more successful. I know that will be a lot of work, might as well be you that does it.

I read your post a couple of times. Some real good points. I read all the posts prior to this and I can't figure out how the hell you get this point.

Experience. ACL65 specifically states that waiting 10 years to upgrade to captain is too long. Been around this game for a while, talked to a lot of junior people. Guess what, I was junior too, once (flying pterodactyls), and I know the feeling. It is not a criticism, as I said I understand the feeling. I just think we need a rational response that takes into account the real world.

Alfaromeo nailed it!
 

Accurately and eloquently put, alfa! Well done, sir!

Things changed
 

Alfaromeo, that was a good historical analysis. I used to think that ALPA and the major carriers goofed by not "capturing" all the regional flying for themselves from day one, but now I'm not so sure it could have been done or would have made any difference. Deregulation just made it too easy for new drillers to tap into what used to be our exclusive "oil lease", and there's only so much oil. Thousands of new pilot jobs were created, but at the expense of the relative few who were (or would have become) the lucky ones under regulation. Perhaps wages could be forced back up, but only by a pilot shortage or re-regulation, and I don't see either one happening. :(

That is not what I have said. What I said was if we have not farmed out any of this flying after 9-11, I would be looking at upgrade now. I do not have an issue being an FO. I like the job, and plan to stay in this position long after I can upgrade. It is not about being a CA, it is about options that would be available if we had not continued to slide on scope. I also would have been able to come over here a long time before this, if we would have not had such an erosion of scope.
That was the point, not that I want your job.

I think this is where the misconception lies. We are not looking for there to be more 737's, though that would be nice. The company needs to have the ability to put the correct jet on the route, I agree with that. My goal is not to make these "RJ's" cost prohibitive. My goal is what you even admit and mention as a possibility. You can maybe get the RJ pilots to change uniforms and now are mainline pilots. That is the goal. One unified pilot group under one list, and one contract. Even you admit that this is a possibility. That is what we are working towards.

I fully admit that there will always be regional airlines. What I am looking to do is roll back the scope on the seat size we allow contract carriers to fly. I do not want to scope by type certificate either. That will be the death nail in our narrow body gauge. We as a group, and looking to get the majority of this flying recaptured and flown by we the Delta pilots.

It is not anger or malice. I place blame on all of us. We continually vote for it. It always is an overall good deal and the scope is the only real thorn. We all decide it is Ok given the gains. It has just been this way for far too long.

As for economic analysis. I believe that many people have been giving it. A lot of the data is skewed, because of how and what we has the parent company pay for with these DCI carriers. The fact is that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on guaranteed margins for these DCI carriers. That is profit that we at DAL could be making with the flying done in house.
I get that we have contracts that in some instances go for another 13 years. I think it would be quite simple to state that once these contracts expire scoped flying would then come back in house.

Is it a lofty goal? Yes, but it is one that needs to be fought. We have for far to long let it be the one issue we will cave in on. As the DC-9 goes away we have no mainline replacement for it. "Nothing works." Well I think that the E-series and C-series are good answers to this. Heck even the CRJ-900 and 1000 would be a good answer to it, if flown by mainline.

I just want to know, and I ask this humbly, "Why is scope not an issue that if fought for tooth and nail."

Actually Slowplay, ACL NAILED IT!!

FIGHTING FOR SCOPE IS CRUCIAL! LOOK AT MIDWEST and UAL!! DOES THAT HAVE TO HAPPEN AT DAL BEFORE SOME OF YOU GUYS WAKE UP TO THIS? THERE IS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT OUTSOURCING OUR JOBS, UPGRADES, AND CAREER EARNINGS!!

I applaud what the AA pilots are doing, but my question is this: How can they get away with admitting they are going to cause disruptions? Wouldn't this constitute illegal job action? I can understand doing it "under the radar" so-to-speak where you cause disruptions, and there is no way for the company to trace it back to anyone. So, how are they getting away with this?

I think that APA is trying to influence the NMB to release them. What they are saying is, "If you release us, we won't strike, we will just make American management unhappy." If they are released then they are free to seek self help, up to and including a strike. American management is also free to impose new conditions on the pilots.

Scope is important, but RJ flying is not all of scope and RJ flying is not any more important than any other section of our contract. It may be to you, but there are 12,400 pilots and they all don't have the same priorities as you. So my answer back is what section of the contract should not be fought for tooth and nail.

I am with you on recapturing the 70-76 flying. If you can't tell, I have been thinking about this for a long time. It won't happen overnight, it won't happen this year, and it may take a long time. That's why I say you would be better off concentrating on building a business case and less time making LEC resolutions and web board postings.

This will be solved as a business decision (think brand management and cost control) and not an industrial decision. There are lots of issues to work through to get from A to B. Identify those issues and identify solutions to those issues. If you are willing to fight tooth and nail, then work on that.

Have you written your reps today???

I got to love the discussion with ALPA reps in JFK... I guess to some pilots scope should be about limiting the fact an RJ can taxi in front of you rather than limiting the rj. :eek: I don't think I could be a rep and deal with people complaining about that out of all things.

And I'd love to have the seniority not to care that the 732s that we got rid of and the DC9s that we'll eventually park will be replaced by a whole bunch of large RJs and a sprinkle of MD90s. But I don't have that seniority and neither does a good portion of this airline.

I think I speak for a few people here who don't give a damn if E175 A pay is below 767 B nor do we care if we get to go from B to A in short order. What I care about is whether I'll have a job and right now, I don't think I will but someone flying a plane we should be flying will. To me its about sticking it to DALPA to get them to figure out how to handle it with DAL, not sticking it to DAL.

OK, lets play. I like this game :)
This part I don't get. You say you support bringing the flying back, but then very eloquently outline all the reasons we should not and politely explain this about a bunch of junior snot noses just wanting a fourth stripe. (nailed me by the way :eek:)

It is a matter of priorities. What is more important than scope? Scope is the only reason the Company abides by the rest of the contract. Otherwise they would just "farm your job out."

First of all, Compass is 88 seat flying, not 76 seats. 76 is a subjective "line in the sand" that is just as likely to be washed away by the economic tides as the other lines in the sand that preceded this one. When the crap hits the fan, what's our track record? In 2001 it was 34%, then it was 37%, then 50% and when it got too ugly to look at we took out the Section 1 limits on block all together. Reports are that the number now exceeds 60%.Our "friends" know our history and realize scope by Type Certificates is a whole lot more objective. They want that 88 seat jet as a bridge to 122 seats. If you look a couple of moves ahead in the chess game, the importance of the Embraer comes into focus.We are a union. We need to focus on labor issues. The only question we control the answer to is who flies the airplane. We really don't have a dog in the fight of whether a 767 replaces a 747, or a RJ replaces a DC9. Our #1 job as a union is to ensure our pilots are at the controls. If it has a Delta logo on it, I want a Delta pilot flying it.How about we let management run the airline and try to get our union to focus on labor issues?

I'm not being critical of the MEC, they have handled the merger brilliantly. They have been smart to partner with management when it makes sense. However, the foundation of their power is unionism. Outsourcing attacks that foundation and reduces their power.

The argument that "we don't want RJ's because their pay stinks" is very short sighted. Pay lasts only as long as the next contract. We need a longer term strategic vision (particularly since we are not in Section 6, or even close to it right now, we don't know what the pay issue will be three to four years from now)

If we divest Compass, the opportunity to capture, up to 122 seats is at risk. Further, we will have created another Comair with its own representational demands and you can be sure they will want more than 36 jets. They will also join the Comair pilots in demanding a raise on the 76 seat cap because that is the business case for their pay. We don't need more enemies at meetings of ALPA's Collective Bargaining Committee, or Scope Oversight group.

I understand you being concerned about the pay rates. My response, don't bid the thing. The more important matter is that those are Delta jobs, under the control of the Delta MEC instead of our adversaries.