CVG767A

If you really want people to read your posts, you may want to consider (a) a larger font, and (b) paragraphs.

AV8ER13

Done, thanks

Check Essential

You are not powerless. You have elected reps who are making decisions on your behalf every day. The NW pilots, through their union officials, have elected to protect their date of hire and realize the benefits of the faster "attrition" that is coming due to the age of the pilots at the top of your seniority list.
The Delta pilots are going to respect that decision. NWA is apparently going to be operated as a seperate division of a holding company until the amendable date of your contract.
The Delta MEC long ago decided to seek benefits from any merger scenario in an "upfront" fashion. We had our seniority attrition a few years ago due to the pension termination process and elected to preserve our merger and fragmentation language instead of making deeper concessions to preserve the pension. We are now finally going to realize some benefits from that strategy in the form of wage increases and maybe some small equity stake.
The two pilot groups took different paths. You will get your attrition benefits and your senior pilots will retire with their pensions. I hope you don't begrudge us the small monetary benefits we may receive largely as a result of giving up our pension.

H46Bubba

Looks like the Delta boys took the move.

TristarJS30

Until the media stops using the term "people familiar with the talks" without giving names I won't believe a word of it. It's just to sell papers and get people to believe lies and turn them into "truth".

Not saying thats the case here, but I'll believe it when I see it.

acl65pilot

Hate to tell you but, the reports are almost totally true. We said yes to doing it. Now the TA will be shortly behind it.
A few days at most. Should know the details by next Thursday at the latest.

StripAlert

I like you and the other NWA guys on this board, and I wish you all were on the SLI negotiating committee for your airline. If their opener had not been to put over 1,000 DAL guys (pre-9/11 hires) below you, perhaps something could've been worked out to the benefit of everyone, and that is surely the way we would've liked it as well. DAL showed up with a reasonable starting position and NWA wanted to shoot for the moon, because that is all your old battle-weary captains know how to do from years of Republic strife.

I think the NWA negotiating committee's eagerness to push for arbitration and NWA management's immediate desire to re-engage without "pilot treats" pretty much sums up who has to most to gain from this and who needs it more. Yes, both companies bring airplanes, equity, and debt to the table--and you can debate the relative positions of each--but the fact is that under the original proposal as much, if not more, of the "combined goodie dollars" were going to be spent bringing NWA up to Delta's pay, work rules, and B-plan than on the increases that would then be realized by the whole group. Both pilot groups should have been working diligently to consummate this deal because it is in the best interests of both airlines to get it done, but NWA's negotiators came in off the mark and never drifted significantly from there.

Steenland wanted Anderson to shove this down all of our collective throats without any incentives whatsoever to punish both pilot groups for not getting along on SLI integration. It is only because the scope clause of DAL's contract prevents a "merger lite" under a holding company that we are in the position to get anything in exchange for negotiating that point with management, for without the Delta pilots' consent, there can be no "merger lite." Please understand that while my predecessors lost over 50% of their pay and their pensions post-9/11, they held firm to that scope language, in effect paying for it in real dollars, and they are entitled to whatever price they can force management to pay for it now, if that's how they want to do this merger.

As an aside, I am sure this is the root of the 100-seat scope rumor posted earlier. Scope is more than RJ's, and in this case, it's about holding companies.

Nobody at DAL wants to staple NWA pilots, and nobody wants a B-scale. I know this might be hard to believe, but there isn't that kind of animosity here, and we'd like it to stay that way. Former-Pan Am, Western, and Northeast pilots are pretty indistinguishable from Delta pilots, and I haven't heard one talk about how they were "screwed in the merger" yet, and I've been flying with ex-Delta guys for a lot longer than I've been with Delta--and many weren't "native-Delta." DALPA isn't in the business of gaining at the expense of our soon-to-be brothers, and you can rest assured they're not going to start now, regardless of how this may look to you at the moment. We are going to be flying with you sooner or later when this thing goes from merger lite to merger, and we'd kind of like it to be harmonious.

However, if you think that the Delta pilots can just say "screw you, Anderson and Steenland, we're not doing your stupid merger lite" and this will all go away, you're kidding yourselves. As oil climbs and cash becomes scarce and airlines continue to fold, the time is fast approaching where the shareholders and boards of directors are going to force a full-blown merger on us all, and you can be sure it's not going to come with pay increases of any kind for anyone. By locking in a modest pay and benefits increase now, the Delta group is effectively moving the fulcrum from which we will all negotiate our combined contract when the merger is fully completed a few years down the road.

You guys have said (as have we) that you'd rather go it alone so you can take advantage of your 787 deliveries and your age-60 retirements. Well, that's in effect what we're apparently getting. Once this all shakes out, we won't have to argue over whose crystal ball is more accurate.

Somebody said "whipsaw," and believe you me, that is probably the most popular word on the DALPA forums these days, with the possible exception of "BOHICA." Nobody wants that, least of all the Delta guys. Here's why: Delta is actually taking 777 deliveries at the moment, while the 787 prototype hasn't even flown yet. So trust me, we have the greater potential for loss if we don't tread very carefully on how we relax our scope language to allow the merger lite. We don't want a 777 delivered this year to the holding company to be offered to NWA pilots to be flown at your 747 rates. And we're with you on not wanting 787's to show up being offered to the lowest bidder.

I have no inside knowledge (the Delta MEC is very tight-lipped and apparently doesn't even know the phone number to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune), but I have to believe that these guys are crafting this deal with extreme caution. Just speculating here, but I imagine clauses that require all new aircraft to come to DAL--or at least to be crewed at the higher DAL rate and work rules--and that nullify the agreement if either of our groups opens Section 6 independently, providing a definite timeline for integrating contracts and seniority lists.

The bottom line is that the economy is in a downturn and loaner capital is increasingly scarce. The last few standing get the government bailout and are rewarded with re-regulation. This merger is probably going to happen one way or another. If the window of opportunity for the NWA MEC to get on board and have something to show for it in the near term even remains partially open, it's closing fast. You might want to talk to your reps soon.

StripAlert

Arbitration isn't talking. It's rolling the dice and putting everyone's interests in the hands of an incompetent third party. That may pass for leadership at NWA, but it doesn't at DAL. Just look at the "New U.S. Airways" for an example of the efficacy of arbitration.

That is a good question for your reps.

DAL pilots would be getting more because our contract won't let management execute Plan B without our consent. Steenland came back to Delta asking to screw all the pilots, and it was discovered that it wasn't possible due to our scope clause. Relaxing that has a price, and it is about to be paid, if the reports are to be believed. We all wanted Plan A, but your negotiating committee rejected it. I suggest you ask them why they did that to you, but don't expect us to turn down what is probably the only carrot to come out of this inevitable deal because your guys were too recalcitrant to accept a fair SLI in addition to all the improvements you were to get above and beyond what was and is being offered to the Delta pilots. The alternative is Plan C, where management goes ahead with a traditional merger, we all get nothing, and the SLI is an arbitrated integration with completely unpredictable results. If that's what you want, you can probably still get it, but we choose to use the leverage that was paid for by other sacrifices.

Again, I think that you, the other NWA guys on here, and the vast majority of Northwest's rank-and-file pilots are reasonable people who could've come to an agreement. Unfortunately, by the reports we're getting, the vast armada of disparate interests who showed up to negotiate the SLI from the NWA side were too concerned about getting a windfall for those at the top of the Red & Green Book lists to worry about anyone else's interests, including yours. This has all been kept from you by your MEC, who would like you to believe that it was the "unreasonable Delta pilots" who were trying to subjugate your seniority and not their personal greed that hurt the entire pilot group at both airlines.

Believe it if it makes you feel better, but know that you're blaming the wrong people. If you're a Blue Book guy, the Delta MEC has been doing, and is continuing to do, more to protect your interests than anyone at NWA. Without their unique relationship with our management, there would never have been "pilot goodies" on the table to begin with, and we all would've woken up to news of this in the WSJ one day.

sailingfun

Just to point out there is no plan whatsoever to operate NWA as a subsiderary as several keep saying on these forums. It amazes me that even after 95% of the news articles on this merger have turned out false intelligent people still latch on to each new article and take it as gospel.
What Delta was going to do was merge the airlines the way all airline mergers have been done in the past. You annouce the merger. The company talks with the two unions about a joint contract and the unions go through the seniority list process. When you have a list and a joint contract operations are then merged. There is always a period of separate operations in every merger until those steps are completed. That is all that is going on here. Neither DALPA or NWA ALPA would permit or allow separate operations and both have contractual language to prohibit that from happening.
With Delta management possibly making the choice to due this merger the traditional way without the pilot issues solved upfront they approached DALPA to waive some of our scope provisions that NWA did not have. Without those waivers the merger gets very expensive upfront. They can still due it however the cost will just be higher. DALPA as they have the last few times the company asked for contractual relief is demanding contract improvements. Nothing new here and no plot against NWA pilots. In fact this allows the process to play out as NWA has wanted and it will go to arbitration. The change is the company will not agree to the original joint contract since they don't get the benefits of having a combined list upfront. The original joint contract had 3 out of every 4 dollars going to the NWA pilots. They can give similiar terms to the Delta pilots for far less money. Once the SLI process has run its course and we have a list then operations will be merged and there will be one contract.
Having said all that it appears that DALPA and NWA are once again talking about a joint list so that may change the plan once again. It will be a busy weekend and something may come out next week.

sailingfun

Had NWA alpa opened for DOH then I suspect we would have a list now. DOH would have been a reasonable opener just as a ratio was a reasonable opener from Delta. The facts are that the opener from NWA was far worse then even DOH for Delta and your committee never moved much from that. In the end I think NWA realized they had made a mistake and painted themselves in a corner. They removed the comittee chairmen however it was to late at the point to save the talks.
It appears now however there may be a last ditch attempt to get a list done this weekend. We will know next week!