I'm teasing sailing, I'm teasing. I'm so teasing. Don't yell at me...

FWIW, I 100% get your point. I think the fear is how do you prevent the perverbial camel getting his nose in the tent again? I guess, hard pill to swallow for many, but you let your reps do the job you elected them to do.

I once worked for an imigrant who came to the U.S. young, dropped out in the sixth grade and washed cars for money. Forty years later, and this of course was pre 2008, he was worth over half a billion or so, all from selling cars well. Now, yall hear me out, his motto basically was everything is for sale. The question is, what are you willing to pay? Now obviously the kids aren't for sale, but the dream home he just built and is about to move into, if you make an offer he'll sell it to you but its going to be the price he paid plus the price to seperate himself from it, i.e. a high price. If you're going to be successful, you carry that attitude.

Scope isn't for sale, but Sailings example is logical. There is a lot of wheeling and dealing evidently out there and if the MEC fails to have an adequate floor or makes a mistake then they won't be in the MEC anymore. As ACL said, stay informed, stuff is happening.

The problem FTB, is everyone's price is different. How does the union determine whose price is the right one?

My price is pretty high. My price is something along the lines that I still get paid if I'm furloughed. Then they can outsource the entire airline for all I care.

I'd say one that increases the number of airframes and pilots at mainline and decreases the number of airframes and pilots at DCI and triggers to say that if the balances shifts back towards outsourced flying then the penalties are outrageous. Not to unlike what Hockey just said.

I'm not saying this is fun putting my life (read career) in the hands of someone else who I've never met and who other people have a lot of oppinions about and not always great, but they are more versed in these matters and they are tasked with representing us and our interests and they were elected by people who have been here longer than I. If they screw up, there will be hell to pay. If they sell out junior pilots like you and I Satch, folks that are not junior like Tsquare, Carl, Ferd, to name but a few, will go mideval. I can picture Ferd playing William Wallace in the parking lot off of Virginia Ave.

But I don't know what they know and every time I talk to someone that does, i.e. fly with someone who is in charge of a committee :eek: or what have you, the more I learn and the more I'm willing to trust. You can say I've been beaten into weary eyed submission.

They're making sausage, yes, but there aren't too many entirely better ways to do it.

Time to go work out. :(

My simple rule is would it benefit the pilot group as a whole. Does it make sense for the pilot group and can the proper protections be built in. Any changes in scope would also have to be independent of pay. That policy has pretty much been established in the last few contract negotiations where we set the pay rates before we tackled scope. Trading pay for jobs is a slippery slope we don't want to go down.
In a major contract change like this one could be, it should to to memory ratification. The pilot group as a whole will decide what their price is. Personally I believe are minimum opening position in Contract 2012 should be the return of all flying in E170 or larger aircraft to the mainline. It will take time and effort but scope has been improved in contracts since I have been on the property. It can be improved again.

:mad:According to Mr. Leach, who sent a email recently to all Compass employees. TSA holdings plans on growing Compass by putting our services out to ALL carriers. Not sure Delta thought this through. It appears Compass could be used to provide the E175's to the competition, grow in size and continue the downward spiral of scope erosion. The pilots of Compass are against growing this airline at the expense of better paying mainline jobs. Now it appears management will continue to increase the size of larger RJ's, whether at Delta or elsewhere. This industry contines to out manuever the labor at every turn!

I joined Compass early on because NWA told the applicants that Compass was the way to get to NWA since NWA would not hire in the future and pilots would first come from Compass & Mesaba when needed. The MEC controlled this flying, the million dollar question is why they did not want to control who, and how, the large RJ flying would be used and for whom?

Unfortunatly, these we concerns of ours when the whole discussion of divesting Compass from the mainline MEC was being discussed. Once that was done it opened the door for our sale to TSA and now this discussion of adding planes and new carriers and stalling our careers even further.

I am not sure how you feel the MEC controlled this flying. The only thing we have is whats in the contract. The issue of representation has no bearing at all on this sale. Delta could have sold Compass regardless of the representation status at Compass. Sometimes I wonder if pilots ever actually read the contract. They could even have sold compass if we had somehow pulled off a miracle and convinced management to merge it into the mainline unless we also managed to add fragmentation language for those aircraft.

No vote. Reasoning:

* What if during a downturn Delta can not finance $45,000,000 for each 11 jobs?
* The CASM makes the E175 / E195 superior platform to the MD88 and in some cases is a replacement for the Airbus and 737NG. What if Delta decided to replace the MD88 fleet?
* If things get really ugly, what is easier to modify, (or toss out: (Arbitrary Limit) or (Seniority List) pick one.

As a union, our strongest job advancement position is unity. We have watched one convoluted line in the sand after another fail. Why would we wish to repeat what has not worked?

We should apply objective stress tests to our proposals.
- Would this provision allow one division of Delta to furlough pilots while another division is hiring?
- Would this provision create jobs which are not represented by D-ALPA and pilots who could challenge our exclusivity on Delta flying?
- Does this proposal honor Delta pilot seniority?
- Will this proposal increase the number of Delta pilot jobs?
- Will this proposal in any way harm ANYONE on the Delta seniority list?

Scope is easy when we are growing. Scope has to be built for worst case scenarios.

Absolutely, Bar. Well done.

Nu

We are really naive if we believe Delta, or ALPA, are in any way surprised by this transaction. First of all they are smart. Second of all, all these scenarios were discussed openly. You can also look at past examples, since nothing changes. ASA flies for United now. Republic morphed into direct competition.

For some reason, we don't play the game defensively. Must just be the arrogance of figuring we can't be beaten, ever.

Sailing, Sir it is encouraging to read that. Very positive post.

I merely suggest a change in the order. Scope ends up being left over bargaining. Putting scope first is better for a number of reasons:

• Currently management sees scope violations at bargaining events. Instead of perceiving an inviolate wall, they see bargaining credits. In the current example we see that the deal is done, THEN they come to ALPA to "discuss."
• Putting scope first means we CONTROL the flying before we set the rates. It is a stronger negotiating position.
• Putting scope first communicates that we are serious about our union, our members and unity.

Agreed. !

So Bar, you're saying that Scope is section 1 for a reason?


Nu

Bar,

Absolutely correct on all accounts. We don't play the game "defensively" because we're in a "reactive" mindset, instead of treating these issues "proactively".

There is always hope that each contract has an "ironclad" response to "scope" and ultimately, "scope erosion". (Must I bring up what happened to Midwest?) The scary part about all of this, I believe, is that the sale of Compass & Mesaba to "people like" Hulas and Co. are creating "UBER REGIONALS" that'll soon replace mainline domestic feed similarly to what happened with Republic/Midwest/Frontier.

GJ

There are many pilots what would be more than happy to see progression at their current regional job than to come over to mainline as well. We as pilots are our own worst enemies.

Which is exactly why DALPA should be looking out for ourselves first. These other groups (not necessarily the pilots, but in some cases yes) will gladly grow at our expense. We should make no apologies about securing OUR flying.

I don't understand the politically correct memos that come out such as the one yesterday. I realize there is a process, but what is so wrong with saying "We are not willing to budge on scope, at all." I did not get a warm and fuzzy feeling reading that memo.

I agree with that statement 100%. Some people simply can't see more than a year or so down the road. It is unfortunate.

Actually, I think pilots are just overly optimistic for several reasons:

• First, Pilots are people who have their stuff together and expect others to have their stuff together. Good preparation usually gets good results. We are engaged in a profession which pulls off an impressive task - powered flight - safely, on time and economically.
• Second, we have optimism that any fully invested person has. Our professions are tied to our employers. Just as everyone thinks their house is probably worth more than it is and their kids are the most talented, we work for the best airlines. Who needs to worry, we are the best!
• Smile and the world smiles with you. Con Artists depend on the basic human trait of always looking for opportunity and good news. Politicians get elected on promises to make things better. Contrast Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Austerity does not sell.

IMHO Comass was a completely proactive and well engineered action that took years to execute.

It is VERY encouraging to me to read folks like Sailing talk about recapturing 76 seat flying. The course to getting this fixed is to convince ALPA leadership the merits of unity, for them to assign the evaluation to subject matter experts and then to make that our negotiating agenda.

There are reasons the line was set at 76 seats. It would be great to have an open and candid discussion of what we intend to define as "Delta Flying." There are encouraging signs, both in posts like Sailings and MEC Communications.

1) Realize the we live in a big ole world and that little memo is probably in the hands of half of the DCI pilots.

2) Along with one we live in a sue happy legal word. We state this openly and in print, you better start a 2% assessment for all of the lawsuits. Understand that many things you want may be said behind closed doors.

3) Read our By-Laws and Policy manual if you have any question as to the charge the MEC has. As was the initial design and structure of the National ALPA, units like DALPA are charged with looking out for the Delta pilots' interest. As with the company, sometimes our interests align with other groups on a greater scale than the day to day stuff here at the airline level. That is what National ALPA is.

As always if you do not agree that this is the direction we are taking, either get involved or tell your reps. We have a lot of guys that are spending almost all of their free time listening and communicating with this pilot group .

Well, for some it is a good deal. ASA, Skywest and Republic Holdings are all talking about fleets the size of Continental's.

It is a good deal at someone's expense, namely another pilot.

As ACL points out, they are held to a high standard of accountability. It read to me like the truth, no embellishment, no chest beating, just the facts.

While I do think we were in the loop conceptually, developing a consensus response takes time.

I could not have written it better myself.

Who negotiated and ratified the good deal?

I think it is more our responsibility since it is within our control. Expecting everyone to refuse to work at GoJets is just unrealistic.

That was not the point. Point is that these "Super Regionals" want to get to the scope and size where their route structures and circumnavigate mainline PWA's. That would be at your expense.

We have discussed this scenario many times.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 100% ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"Hey Mr. Jumpseater, who are you with?"
"ASA"
"Were you going to apply to Delta?"
"Well, I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure, you know right now, and my wife is, and I have pretty good seniority, I've been here 10 years, and well I don't know, I'm a Captain now..."
"How much do you make?"
"$78 an hour."
"You'll be back there by year 2."

But you know what, if you don't want it then don't bother. There are plenty of people who want it, we'll bend over backwards for people who want it, and frankly see OH as a warning and not a 'ha ha'.

I am interesting in tieing these 5 things together: the lessons DAL has probably learned from RAH and funding their growing competition, the "we want out of the RJ business" comments from up high, the Continental Express LAX risk sharing system, not finding anyone to bid on buying OH, and this Compass and Mesaba sale to none other than TSH.

Its like looking at one of those darn Magic Eyes. FWIW, if I were a regional airline right now I'd be saying the same thing Delta said "we want out of the RJ business."

This discussion of moving on to a Major vs. staying at a Regional has played out many times before. The damage to the industry was not anyone's fault. You cannot blame the current generation of regional pilots. Most wanted to move up and now the opportunity is coming too late. You can not fault someone for looking out for their own best interest. Moving up to a Major and commuting for the last 15 years of one's career, a majority of which will be spent in the right seat mind you, in today's uncertainty is dubious at best. I hear the conversation you quoted above all the time and I always have to agree that staying at a Regional is usually the best case. Job security is probably better sitting at the top 20% of a Regional than the bottom 5% of a major. Many are well on there way to a 6 digit salary, finally a good amount of vacation, 18 days off, 125% matching 401K, it is hard to make an argument for someone in their mid 40's to move on.

With that being said, as a regional pilot, I will be the first one to support the taking back of 50+ seat flying for mainline and I will also be the first one to jump ship to a brighter future the first opportunity I get. Ask me in seven years when I am in my 40's and you might get a different opinion.

If we are comparing moving on to a major and staying at a regional, I don't understand the sentence in bold. Sitting in the right seat for 25 years at a major in the smallest equipment in the base you want to live in will still pay more in a career than being the #1 guy on the largest RJ at a regional airline. I don't get it. Yes many will commute to fly captain on a widebody for the last few years of a career to maximize retirement etc. but many do the opposite. Several guys I fly with in IAH on the 757/767 were 777 CA's commuting to EWR. They have only 5 years left to 65 and want to fly more domestic and limit their overseas flying so they can coast through their final years.

Exactly, Bar.

sailing's line of reasoning is exactly what got us in this scope mess in the first place. Short sighted vs. long view...

sailing.. you really need to think about what you typed.

Living in base, bidding the top of your equipment is a whole lot more palpable than commuting to Newark for five years was my main point. Many of the current Regional Captains have seen many of their peers go to United and Midwest over the last 10 years only to be burned. Sometimes staying put is the safer bet. We all know every move in this industry is a gamble.

Please go into detail on what I should think about in what I typed? You don't think we should try and take back the 170/175 flying? You don't think we should make sure we don't tie scope and pay together? You don't think the MEC should try and improve the life of Delta pilots? Please tell me the part I should think about?

I think the sailing's post was a hypothetical one to show an example of how drawing a line in the sand could backfire. Reference the post below.

Bar's response was in agreement to sailing's reasoning.

As best as I can see, sailing is for scope restoration. He's just helping us to understand why we have to negotiate. JMO.

Now that I reread it.... failed reading comprehension on my part! Sorry, sailing!

Back to yard work...

Yard work in this weather, yuck! That is what my weekend will be filled with as well.

ACL are you hearing anything from the meetings happening this week?

The compass MEC has a conference call sched. tonight at 9pm and I will try to post the notes from it as soon as its over.

If anything is leaking, it is my opinion given where we are, that it is totally improper to post that on here.

A lot is going on and most will have a better idea of what is going on next week.

Agree with ACL. If you want to know details, call your rep. While you are on the phone with them, be sure to give them your input.

Everything being what it is, NOTHING beats verbal communication.

Nu

What kind of sick twisted freak are you becoming Nu? Verbal communication? Now how pray tell do we do that?!?




:D

How about for starters, denying a bunch of 76 seat jets at regionals now that an opportunity arised. Or is that for sale? Just asking.

It will drive the seat-mile up on these birds making them less desirable.

Schwanker

Compass MEC is making you chose between their conference call and king james's ESPN show?

Just to add something to this thread:

Any of you think that maybe DAL wants to have the seat trigger invoked so they can get out of some of this flying?