Jack:

Its Delta Air Lines. Can't believe they hired you without spelling the airline correctly!

 

Haha it's a good think there wasn't a spelling test. I not a good spellar.

 

I've gotta say, I don't care about the contract needs and wants, or the career aspirations of non-Delta pilots either. I hope we use our negotiating capital to improve our quality of life, and you can do the same at your airline. It sounds like you'll be coming over to Delta soon. When that happens, I'm in your corner. Until then, your wish list is irrelevant to me.

Pattern bargaining means we try to get the best deal possible for us; when it's your turn to negotiate, you get to use our contract as justification for a better contract. It doesn't mean that we should negotiate from your wish list, whether you work for Compass, UCAL, or Mesa.

 

I will withhold my final judgement until I read the section 1 language as it's written. But for now, based on the negotiator notepads, passing this TA will give the company the equivalent of TWO Compass airlines in exchange for B717s (yesterdays technology tomorrow) and parking inefficient 50 seaters. All this based on the assumption of mainline growth, which I believe will happen right up to the additional large RJ cap. Then all those "beyond control of the company" issues will pop up and DAL will be forced to park those older inefficient mainline jets. At that point the block hour ratio kicks in. I'm willing to bet that in a contraction, all that block hour reduction will come out of the remaining 50 seat fleet and the large RJ's will steam ahead full tilt, flying more and more of our mainline routes in full compliance with the TA. In addition, the work rule changes and early retirement will ensure limited mainline hiring even with 88 mainline airframes added.

The bottom line for me is can I spend my remaining few years in this business looking my F/O straight in the eye and say I voted yes to selling his (and my) seat to another airline. I'm not willing to do that.

The solution is so simple (and frankly...why did our NC not hold out for this). We fly the larger gauge RJs, the company has no cap and can still renegotiate their leases and get rid of the 50 seat albatross that they created. What's the stumbling block...the company loses it's B scale.

Should we vote this down...I hardly think the company will sit on it's hands and do nothing for the next 3 years despite our concessionary contract. They wanted something badly and we might give it to them for essentially nothing.

 

You got that right. If they want to hide behind the NMB and tell us to eat cake, I say we tell them to bring it.

 

While I can't stand the guy's name (jungle bus....) he makes some very good points. While its semi-fair to say we only care about DL pilots on the list today, we can't entirely hide behind that. If we could, then we should have no problem with a B scale for all future new hires, right? I mean who cares about them, they are not here. Junglebus (omg I so hate that name) will be at DL so its fair for him to interject his opinion on this. More importantly than that though, he's right about what he's saying. If its really a matter of parliamentary procedure, then I officially yield him the balance of my time.

 

Heh, I'm really sorry you hate the screenname so badly...I think we hashed it out in another thread, but it wasn't meant as any sort of slam on the airbus or bus pilots or anything mainline, more of a lighthearted reference to the embraer's brazilian origins. How bout once I get to DAL I pick a new screenname? "EmbraerKiller" perhaps?

 

Ha! I like it. I get why you use it BTW, and my angst stems exclusively from management's lust for large outsourced RJ's as a mainline replacement. To them they are just as good as an Airbus for many routes. If we flew them on our list, the nick wouldn't bother me at all.

 

Dude, I think you've gone rogue. You've been watching too much 24. Not everything is a conspiracy and management is not always out to get us. It's just business. Management figured out how much they were willing to give us to get this deal done and for us to get the 717's and make it worthwhile. That's it. And just because the pilots asked for more never meant we were going to get it.

 

You missed the point completely. I think management is doing their job just fine, no conspiracy there....they seem to have played this negotiation perfectly from start to finish (if this contract is voted in). From the brilliant "There exists and an opportunity...." hook they introduced, which the ALPA guys have been parroting from the beginning to selling us on giving up more work rules and trading their rotten produce for an orchard that will permanently source flying that given time could have been turned over to the Delta pilot group.

Again, I have no problem with management doing everything they can to win this negotiation. That is what they are paid to do....keep costs down and maintain leverage, never allowing any one group to increase their bargaining power.

Where I have a huge problem is the union that told us to take the time to fill out a survey that would be used as the blueprint for this contract, not following their own rules, keeping the membership in the dark (they still wont release the survey....I will let you guess why) and now using misleading examples to sell us on what THEY think we should really want.

We were told if we could not obtain what the survey reflected we would not rush the process. We would enter into traditional negotiations. Virtually everything they said they would do they have strayed from and imposed their own will over the will of the pilots. That is not representation.

I get it. You are OK with that. You get a few bucks more in your pocket and are willing to take your chances with further erosion of some key work rules and large RJ outsourcing that will stay with us forever for a handful of used 717's. That is your choice.

My prediction; If enough people buy off on what the DALPA marketing group is selling only to be left with a few sweaty dollars in their pocket and unfulfilled promises, this pilot group will finally get what it needs, albeit a little too late to prevent the damage of this contract we will have to live with for a very long time.