BINGO! Mysteriously, the airframes keep on getting bigger and more capable. The term RJ should be trashed. These aircraft are up to par with anything mainline flies.

Even if mainline pilots agree to fly these 90, ooops I meant 76, seaters for free, I dont think management would agree:confused:

TEN

What does this have to do with the odds of this thing passing? We get it, Untied, you don't like our TA. You say it's worse in terms of Scope, a lot of us think it's better. That's neither here nor there: we'll vote on our TA, you vote on yours.

Meanwhile, we'll decide what's in our best interest. The lecturing is getting tiresome. The origin makes it irrelevant.

I'd be shocked if voter turn out is only 80%. For those who are members in good standing I would bet the voter turn out is at least 90%

finis, I respect your opinion and understand your desire to see the 50 seat RJ go away. My concern is that we are also allowing more 76 seat RJ's that directly compete with mainline flying. I don't think the 50 seat jet can compete for our jobs in this environment.

Most folks I talk to agree that the 70 + seater should have never left mainline, yet this TA allows more (70) 76 seaters to DCI. Is it too much to simply ask to hold the line at 255 70/76 seat RJ's? My hope for this TA was comprehensive Scope protection with no concessions at all in regards to Scope.

A Macro Economic view
 

Another way to look at this TA is to pan out and see it from 85,000 and Mach 3. In other words, what is the economic risk of forgoing this choice or opportunity cost of locking into a contract which is below market ?

This chart may be a bit confusing, but to the left it shows the decrease in Gross Domestic Product created by a Greek exit from the Euro. The mechanism for this happening is unfolding as Greeks (and Spanish) depositors take their Euro denominated money out of Greek banks and the European Central Bank comes in to recapitalize the banks. Eventually Germans will tire of pumping money into Greek banks when even the Greeks themselves do not have confidence in their system.

When the Greek institutions run out of Euros they will be forced to issue IOU's then issue their own currency. The creation of a currency takes time and will be highly unstable. Real value depreciation of 50% (100% inflation) is expected.

If Greeks manage to remain sane through this process it might be time for the rest of Europe and the US to plan a nice cheap vacation to the Greek Islands. There will be a "flight to quality" as people and institutions seek a safe place for their money (US and to some extent the Middle East). This will increase the value of the dollar causing deflation, which is good for consumers (us) but bad for producers (Delta & our employers).

Spain will be the problem ... this just looks at a "Gr-exit" a "Spain-xit" would have about a 5 times greater impact.

Further, to the extent that this causes price deflation in the United States, Delta would hope to deflate our pay in a similar fashion to remain value neutral. Or in other words, by locking in gains now, we pilots are effectively hedged against economic uncertainty. While that may be stating the obvious ... we really are in an uncertain time. The US government has had the accelerator floored for a while with near zero cost financing from the Fed. Not only is the Fed out of bullets, their policies could cause hyperinflation coming out of the back side (which is when we would NEED a new contract pronto).

and

As for the first part, yes it is too much to ask, because there's no deal on the table that does this, and allows the company to trade in the 50's for something else, AND gets us out of our contracts with the DCI carriers. The extra 76-seaters are the bargaining chip. Other than wishful thinking, I haven't heard one plan that gets the 50's traded in, and accomplishes what this TA does.

As for the second, you're getting an improvement to Scope, and for the first time, the trading is occuring within Section 1, resulting in a net improvement. I can't read Section without concluding that more leverage was applied there, probably even at the detriment of Section 3. So it can be easily argued this is the first time we've leaked leverage into Section 1. The difference in what you're asking is that you want a "pinch-me-I'm-dreaming" Scope outcome. That would be so expensive we'd probably have NO Section 3 improvements.

Don't kid yourself: this thing won't go down because the Scope is poor, it'll go down because the Scope is too good, and we failed to shift leverage out of Section 1, into Section 3, as we always do. Most of the "no's", based on my experience will not be over 76-seaters, but over the payrates.

Bar, I agree with what you've said. I had thought about posting my thoughts on this, but I don't want to be seen as selling this TA to anyone. I think that we will have an idea where the Greece, Spain, and the Euro are headed before we have to vote on the TA.

I'm not a payrate-first guy, and I like Section 1, so what you're highlighted is another reason I'm leaning towards yes. I essentially view the Section 3 language as a insurance. Great insurance for deflation, acceptable insurance for stagflation, and an opportunity to have to kick myself in the [deleted] for several months, as the company makes a killing, if the economy picks up, and inflation does too. In that case, the worst outcome is that the company is able to clean up its' balance sheet further, and perhaps renew the fleet.

In the last scenario, a stable company wouldn't stop us from getting upset that we failed to lock in enough gains, but then again, between the new FTDT, and a possible merger, I see additional opportunities to open the contract up. That's why I think that, if everything goes well, it would be a matter of months, not years before we can improve on C21012.

That makes the cost of this "insurance" TA much more affordable.

Well sir, I respectfully disagree with your view on this. I do know that if with each contract we keep giving up a little more Scope at a time, there will come a time when there is nothing left as ALPA keeps moving the chains with each TA.

Really is interesting that in regards to not giving our jobs away we can have such opposing views. Or are we not in agreement that we shouldn't give away our jobs?

However management also is fully aware of all of this. They wouldn't have been in such a rush to get a deal done if they could just wait a year or so and say, "Look at Europe. We simply can't pay you what you deserve.". Sometimes we learn quite a bit if we look at particular situations from a variety of perspectives, not just our own.