Why would we not want to help the Company shed airplanes that they got in the first place with the sole intention of replacing our jobs?

I'd like to help them shed all of them, or at least every one not piloted by a Delta pilot.

With the ratios, we are promised more domestic Delta flying performed by Delta pilots.Actually, they have no reason to dodge that question with this TA.

 

I am skeptical that :

1) the ratios would hold up given the gigantic loophole letting the company off the hook

2) DALPA can/will attempt to enforce the ratios if/when the company is non-compliant

 

Bar with the 717 delivery schedule to end about the end of 2015 and the 76 seaters probably being on property by then; Does it not set the stage of DAL hitting their DCI limits at the time of another bargaining round? What is the history on the property at these pressure points?

These new RJ's allow DAL to fly the sublease lift another 15 years. Changing out the 70's for 76 seaters under the current agreement would allow the same. In the current agreement the 50's are unlimited, and in the new one they get capped. In the near and mid term the 50's are going to go away. With this agreement 76 seat jet count will go up, 70's are static.

In five years the 70's leases will come up, 50's will be retiring, and DAL will want to offer a lower DCI cap by parking more 50 seaters and returning 70's for a mere six extra seats for those 102 aircraft. What's the harm? See where this is going? Does it offer the solution you seek?

*You wanted a counter point, look in to the future and see that the timing of our next round works well for more scope redos, an overall lower level at DCI, but in turn more aircraft operated as 76 seat aircraft.

 

Understood Bacon.

I'm generally against economic disincentives which have a prior history of failure during extreme stress. However, the economic assumptions made in this contract TA appear much stronger than similar provisions that I've been critical of.

 

Your post exemplifies exactly what management thinks of us as a group. They are basing their confidence in this TA on our group being risk averse. Their personalities are ones of risk taking. They obviously try to be smart about their risk taking, but risk itself NEVER scares them away from taking risk. Your post shows them that at least some pilots are scared to take ANY risk. A bird in the hand will always be justified as best because there is absolutely no risk.

In my business, I deal with managers like our management a lot. When we discuss different personality types, we all agree that the one trait we universally disrespect is the risk averse personality. It's thought they deserve all the poor results that their low risk tolerance gives them.

I'm betting a YES vote on this TA will mark us as the coward on the playground by management. Thus there will be a lot more bullying for many, many more years. A YES vote is the start of a very painful future IMO.

Carl

 

Could you expound on this? Always find your posts interesting and insightful, and your support of the TA despite additional 76 seaters has been surprising. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say about the above.

 

I think our dissonance is whether management would retire the 70 seaters to bring on 76 seaters. I think that you and DL pilot assume no. I'm stating "maybe." Further, I'm pretty sure management has committed to 125 to 150 of the 50 seat jets. They may swap a few rotables and engines around resulting in maintenance hangars that look like the set for Junk Yard Wars.

"quick, take these four airplanes, make one with 4,500 more cycles on it, have it ready for the 06:00 departure, ready set, GO!"

 

FIIGMO,

As long as you understand the risks (and I maintain there is a large populations of DAL pilots that don't know or even worse, don't care). The information about this TA put out by the MEC and LEC reps is so one sided (like the 1000 hour a year pay argument by Tim O - I have never seen 900 hours under PBS let alone a 1000) that it's hard to believe anyone is making a really informed decision. This raise and the increase in their other benefits is good enough and don't care about the downsides. I fully respect your decision to make an informed decision and vote yes. I hope that before the final voting you may see that the risks actually out weigh the benefits (even though the benefits are definitely bird in hand).

 

Dam skippy.....

 

They will when their lease are up, but I do not suspect they would do that now. If they would you will have 255 76 seaters not 102 70's and 223 76 seaters, or 325 70+ seat aircraft.

If they swapped out 70's for 76 seaters and we assume the 70's all operate at 64 seats its 1224 more seats, and that assumes no 50 seat jets get parked, which will not be the case. I also do not think that Bombardier will do a swap of 70s for 76 seat jets. Not with removing the entire early termination penalty. Not even close. If that was the case or even was possible, I suspect we would have seen that sort of thing to 255 in the TA; We don't and that is proof in the pudding. They want to keep the 70's on their current leases because the market is gone. The market for the 50's is gone, all that is left is the 76 seat market and they prefer to keep the production line open versus lease swapouts.

What the current TA does is allows the company to park 50's that are not quite up for their lease terms, swap them for some of the 50's that are newer and reduce their debt obligation. It lowers DCI's seat count sooner but at the expense of airplanes that are viable for 10-15 more years.

As you have constantly stated, every time we hit a new scope limit, its moved. That is the point of my last post. We are moving/modifying it now and have previously for some level of protections. The last time was for furlough protections. This time it is for a production balance that will force parking more 50 seaters(part of my concern is that these CPA's will not be adjusted and if the ratios force a pulldown, the existing language will not allow it to occur-beyond the company's control) Next time it will be the 70's and more 50's. I ask you, is this plan acceptable to one that wants unity? Do the next few steps ensure that for this group and pilots as a whole?, or are you going to fail safe mode because it appears it may do something that we want, but you cannot put your finger on what is missing?

I really want to know? My biggest concern is with the non-compliance language and how it is not specifically written for this part of the PWA but is a term that has been used for other items and has not been modified.

DCI does get reduced overall. DCI gets more larger sustainable lift. DCI may need something like this again in the next round. If it looks the same is it something that you and the pilot group should support even if it extends the life of DCI and does not necessarily sunset the outsourcing?