Not Exactly Eye-Watering
 

This is from a Delta MEC Chairman's Letter that just landed in my email box. Guess I need to finish up my 400 hours in July so I can help be part of the 40%...

Good thing we're getting P/S on Pinnacle, seeing as we're trying to kick them to the curb...

I'd post the rest, but it was two pages of fluff. "Special meeting. Yada, yada. Hard times, better than you could've hoped for, thanks be to the MEC. Blah, blah. Vote sometime in the future. Yada, yada. Still trying to hammer out SLI. Blah, blah. Synergy."

It never ceases to amaze me that I seem to be the only one to notice that we DON'T HAVE A $&#ing PENSION!!! So why are the DC plan improvements so far down the road? Like we had all the freaking time in the world or something...

What? You sayin' 2% in 2012 ain't good enough for you? ;)

Oh it's fine! Fine that is considering I'M ALREADY USED TO being in a soup line!!!! :mad:

The curious omission is the equity. It's been widely reported that "both pilot groups lost equity in the proposed new airline by not agreeing to a deal before the merger was announced."

So, does that mean 3.5% for Delta (which would be consistent with LOA 19 +) and something less than 3.5% for NWA, or does it mean that we're all splitting something less than the 7% from February's tentative agreement?

The deal was 5% in Feb, not 7%. Word on the street is we keep our 3.5% from LOA 19 and the NW pilots get it too.

Say what? Doesn't sound right. 7,000 Delta pilots share 3.5% while 5,000 NWA pilots share another 3.5%? That would be like saying the NWA pilots get double-digit pay raises and the DAL pilots don't...oh wait

I believe that is 3.5% of the combined company divided up by the 12,000 Delta pilots.

My understanding is that the entire merged pilot group splits 3.5%. I think we were all hoping that LOA 19 represented a springboard for an even better eventual joint contract. However, several weeks ago Lee Moak sent an email that if you read between the lines, he was trying to say that in the current environment, "Don't get your hopes up". Personally I was really hoping for a much better DC plan.

I know there are still a lot of people at NWA (and other airlines) who think LOA 19 was a 'stab in the back'. I think History might show that it was a wise attempt to salvage any pay/equity deals out of this as oil goes through the roof and the US airline industry goes down the toilet. I really feel for the airlines in full section 6 negotiations right now....I'm not sure they'll do much better.

Of course the real shame is that we didn't get the better contract back in Feb/Mar timeframe. That's going to represent a lost opportunity especially if the SLI rumors are true and it turns out to be a ratio/relative seniority framework that sounds strangely like the Delta position. I will also add that given the general underwhelming nature of this joint contract for the Delta side, I'd really like to see the proposed SLI before voting on any JPWA.

Deldah

We will never see the SLI before the vote. Too many people ****ed on both sides. I think we will have the vote on the TA and then about 1 week after passage both MECs will go into "expidited around the clock no on comes out until we have an agreement" negotiations. Amazingly about 6 to 7 days latter poof we will have an SLI.

My thought is that the SLI will be a relative senority position deal with a no bump no flush agreement. Fences if any will be short 12 to 24 month.

You will see the money section only if NWA approves it.

I will bet the farm it will not include 1000 phantom Delta pilots that you boys were shooting for originally. That being said, I am glad we did not take your original offer and I feel that our MEC made the right choice. Pay raises can come and go but seniority is forever.

You boys were happy with LOA 19 when NWA was not invited. Now that we are on board I've noticed a lot of complaining about "whats in it for us" BS. What changed? Egos maybe?

This is an opportunity for both sides to get gains and a stronger company to work for moving forward. In todays environment of $140 a barrel oil we need to grab what we can and honestly i am happy we are in this position rather than what many of our friends are dealing with around the rest of the industry. Both MECs know that doing the TA first is whats important so we can move forward and reach the efficiencies we need to be successful as a business and not turn into the next Usair. Our MECs have done well thus far and are working together now and i am sure both sides have realized we need each other to get this done and become a real industry leader. I am sure the SLI negotiations will be worked out and we will be able to push forward as a solid single pilot group. We shall see.

Where are you getting this 1000 phantom pilots hogwash from?

Now this is an impressive post. You're whining about voting "no" when you haven't even been at Delta long enough to vote. Still on probation and complaining about the company from which you sought employment. You're looking at a greater than 20% increase in compensation with improved furlough protection, while your peers at UAL, AMR, CAL, and LCC are looking at furlough. Or maybe you aren't looking. Try moving the liquor cabinet a little further away from the keyboard.

Simple question. How many subcontract flights does Pinnacle do for Delta? Then answer how many does it do for NWA?

I look forward to your hurrying to get off of probation so you can begin meaningful contributions back to the pilots of the merged Delta. We can make you fluff control officer. Seems like that would fit in with your skillset. Is that what you do while on military leave?:rolleyes:

Some guys are not too happy that about 75% of the money in this deal is going to the Northwest pilots. That fact is going to generate some "no" votes among DAL pilots. I think it will still pass but it might be close. And 75% is probably conservative if you count retirement funding.

I have a few questions for you. Are you a moron? Can you not see what is happening in this industry? Thousands of pilots losing their jobs permanently. Thousands more getting furloughed. The industry is in chaos. You are getting raises, better retirement, better work rules, and furlough protection. Either you are making a big joke, or you are the most sheltered cry baby in the world. If you think you can get better than this by voting no then have at it. You will then deserve to have your butt kicked down the street in whatever comes next. Any NW or Delta pilot that votes against this deal should be shot because you are too stupid to inhabit the earth. And yes, this was the restrained reply.

Agreed. The pay raises take us nearly to FedEx and UPS levels of today in four years. I think the 777 was paying around $230/hour then. Hopefully, the merger has been fully integrated by then and we are on the road to kicking butt around the world. Having a foundation to build off of and a stronger carrier will mean we can go after the true pay raises and retirement contributions then. To think we can do that now, when we are on the precipice of armageddon in this industry is laughable.

However, I temper that with the fact that although we are great at flying airplanes, pilots generally don't know squat about managing money.

I understand DAL guys stance with this...... But a lot of NWA guys are not happy with the rates that were generated by LOA 19 for the NWA aircraft. Especially in respect to the 400 and airbus. There are always going to be issues that folks feel they got the short end of the stick, but for me I am looking at the positives not the negatives. I feel the combined company will be a powerhouse that preserves jobs and pay.

Bingo. There was zero "parity" in this proposal--the lion's share went to NWA.

With LOA 19, 3.5% equity is split 7,000 ways. I understand the new "deal" will split 3.5% 12,000 ways. Is that correct?

Tell you what, give me the 3.5% split 7,000 ways and LOA 19 raises, keep the insulting 2% DC increase in 4 years, and put me down as a HELL NO vote.

Wake me up when the goodies are split 50/50 between groups. Until then, I'm a "no."

Delta pilots get 3.5%, Northwest pilots get 2.38%. It works out to the same per capita for each group.

Realy????? The end pay rate for those a/c in LOA 19 represent an increase of almost 30% over your current book. 179 to almost 230. Is this more "premium widebody" mentality crap? I realize you're just the messenger on this so forgive my tone, but what exactly do these babies you speak of want? DAL 777: $230, NWA 744: $231? Would that make the whale God's egos happy? Carl, do you care to weigh in on this?:confused:

From the NWALPA website...

NWA pilots receive 2.38% equity
NWA pilots receive statistically equal $$$ Equity share relative to DAL pilots within LTR 19

pretty sure that means our equity doesn't come out of your previously negotiated equity. I'm sure you'll have plenty of other reasons to hate the deal.

This is a great post and very accurate. It makes you wonder if people have any idea whats going on around them.:eek:

It sounds like they're getting 2.38 split 5000 ways. (not coming from our pot.... ie we still get the LOA 19 amount we expected) I hope that's right. I'm all militant and shiz too, but realistically in this environment what do you expect? What specific changes would elicit a yes vote from you? Not a flame. Honest question.

Remind us how we are all getting pay raises in this deal? It couldnt be that NWA is bringing ALOT of CASH to this new company, COULD IT??:confused: We at NWA arent getting 3.5% equity. The reason why any of us are getting pay raises is because of the merger and what BOTH companies are bringing to the table. We are in this together. Would you prefer less pay rates for your soon to be "Fellow Delta Pilots"? Wake up!!:cool:

Thank you for the realistic view.

Any NWA pilot that isn't happy with his new rate should be reminded of his old rate. Then have him compare it to every Delta pilot's rate increase. What kind of sense of entitlement must that pilot have? He gets to pick up two twenty dollar bills while the Delta guy only gets one, and he wants to whine? Left to his own contract and devices, he wouldn't have the opportunity for that rate increase until late 2011. Instead, he gets it January 1, 2009.

He'll get a lot of sympathy here....:rolleyes:


Dingdingding. We have a winner. Compare the combined company to that of any network carrier:

AMR 2000 on furlough, 300 more coming
UAL 1400 notices to furlough 950 active pilots
CAL A dutch auction to mitigate the number of furloughs
LCC 300 more furloughs, split groups, and bankruptcy wages.

Aloha, Champion, Skybus, Eos, Maxjet, liquidating. Frontier in bankruptcy. Midwest parking 33% of their fleet and furloughing. Airtran is shrinking. DHL screwing their pilots, while FedEx and UPS are reporting weakening results. The list goes on.

Yup, we should be carping that the A319 is paid more than an MD-90, or an A330-200 is premium, while a 767ER isn't....:(

The reports from your MEC meeting will be interesting.:D Tell me which union has got a tougher sell.

As an outside observer, I'd suggest everyone at the new Delta spend a lot less time arguing over who gets what and start figuring out how to make the new airline profitable at $140 oil or you'll find yourself arguing over how to split up 3.5% of ZERO, which is what the new DAL stock will be worth if you (yes, and managment) run the company into the ground because you think you've been treated unfairly.
Even if you have been.

I agree with superpilot on this one. I am new at Delta and will not be able to vote on the TA and if the ship starts listing I will not be one of the first to wash overboard with a furlough letter but I will get wet. That being said I do not understand the audacity of some of the guys on this board that still think that the airlines and lifestyle of 20 years ago in this business is a possibility anytime in the near future. Is it just me or does anyone else see that our industry as a whole is going through a very dynamic and hostile environment right now? You know what the five year plan for all these airlines is right now....Survive that's it.

From my research before I came to Delta I noticed that some very hard choices were made by all. Yes the pilots' took it in the shorts with payscale reductions and the effect on your pensions. Management made serious cuts to streamline the infastructre of the airline. People are doing more work for less money and the company is always looking for ways to streamline the operation. The same type of scenario played out at NWA also. More was asked of everyone for less money. At United the only thing that happened was a complete bashing of every labor group with absolutely no change in infastructre. That and someone's pipe dream of oil staying at $50.00 a barrell when every analyst knew that was an impossibility.

There are countless other items that could be noted but the main focus here is this:

I would much rather get a 5% payraise and bring my new fellow employees to pay parity than vote no on this deal and find myself calling 1-800-BIG-RIGS with 950 of our friends from United. I am not trying to flame anyone but it has been mentioned that payscales come and go but seniority is forever. Why don't we ask the guys at Eastern, TWA, Pan-Am, and the countless other pilots over the past 30 years at various airlines affected by this industry how much seniority helped them?

One last comment before I go back to my hermit whole. We are the only industry where we allow our collective judgment to get clouded on the premise that twenty years from now I am going to fly X airplane for Y dollars and Z retirement. I have asked many a friend in other business's what they expect to be making at their present company in X number of years. Their response...."Um what are you talking about, I hope to make enough money to stay above inflation and COLA. I hope that market forces and my hard work will reward me with more responsibility and more income."

If we can overcome the Draconian premise in today's global market that no matter what happens we are entitled to X,Y, and Z then maybe just maybe when can become active participants in the future and shape of our industry. I wish to thank both MEC's for taking the first step in many to come.

Cheers,

Didn't post to fan the flames..... ALPA has typically based pay rates on lift, range, and speed. Using this formula the NWA aircraft don't fall in line with the DAL aircraft. Yes there are raises for the NWA folks but the view is they are not in line with ALPA and the way "NWA has calculated rates".

There is no way for the DAL folks to gain financially the same percentage as the NWA guys due to you better pay scales. So yes based on this alone NWA is seeing more of the $$. But NWA brings a lot to the table that should benefit us all. The $$ at hand are Delta's and Northwest's as a combined company, none of this applies if the merger doesn't happen.

As I posted above I look forward to working with everyone at DAL. I really hope we all don't get caught up in a DAL/NWA war like the red/green issue at NWA, all that will do is cost everyone.

I don't think this TA is good enough to rush into. DAL is getting basically nothing--yet some of us feel the need to jump in head first yesterday due to the "environment."

Big decisions should not be made in panic, and that's what I'm seeing here--folks running around with their hair on fire.

Wow?!?........... I'm floored! If you're right and this is the level of ego and pettiness of enough folks on either side, I guess we'll just fight over how to arrange the deck chairs and whether or not to board the life boats by class (premium widebody pilots first please [as identified by their fifth stripe]) until our hats get wet. By then, of course, it will be too late.

I'll repost my original response:

Realy????? The end pay rate for those a/c in LOA 19 represent an increase of almost 30% over your current book. 179 to almost 230. Is this more "premium widebody" mentality crap? I realize you're just the messenger on this so forgive my tone, but what exactly do these babies you speak of want? DAL 777: $230, NWA 744: $231? Would that make the whale God's egos happy? Carl, do you care to weigh in on this?:confused:

Agreed, but you seemed to reject it with "hair on fire panic". Again, seriously not a flame, what changes would get a yes vote out of you?

Wow!, I'm not counting on rational thought from some of the people on this board, but from the looks of it , most are very junior and very vulnerable. We didn't get all our ducks in a row and missed a golden opportunity in february. Well, this is not my first look at the swells about to swamp the boat, and neither is it for most of the crew. This will pass because it is as fair a deal at this particular time as we have the time to negotiate. With only a scant few numbers below them, the blather of some posters is just that, blather. Man overboard drill coming! Better hope your buds man the rails.

Very true. If you read some of my recent posts, you'll see I'm well aware of all that, probably more so than most.

Delta and NWA are doing the right thing by merging, and it's going to make for a better future for both companies. We're all very fortunate to be here, in light of the current industry situation. However, let's keep in perspective that this TA (including LOA 19) represents but a 3.5/2.5/2.5/2.5% pay increase over what was already guaranteed in our contract over the next 4 years. That's not even going to remotely keep up with inflation, let alone make a dent in pay restoration.

Don't get me wrong, Delta's MEC did a great job of working this merger from all angles starting from a very long time ago. Kudos to them. In the olden days, we'd just wake up to read about this in the paper and not get anything but years of strife and malcontent. I just hope they don't fumble the ball crossing the goal line and waste any of the leverage they've accrued.

Do personal attacks help you overcome your fears? If so, I'm here for you, bro.

The Delta pilots already have all of that with LOA 19, with the exception of a 2% DC contribution increase that begins 3 years from now and a slightly bigger incentive to fly overtime, which will come in real handy for the company when they decide to start their own furloughs. The "furlough protection" in LOA 19 is a joke. It won't be too hard to blame furloughs on fuel prices rather than the merger, and then there's no contractual disincentive to furloughing any of Delta's post-9/11 hires (and anyone from NWA who ends up junior to them on the SL).

There is absolutely nothing in this TA (given what we know so far) from the Delta perspective that comes remotely close to making it worth expediting an SLI crapshoot so that it can be accomplished in time for Delta's pilots to share the pain of NWA's pending fleet reduction, especially when NWA is so reluctant to share the gain of their near-term retirements with us. We already have substantively the same deal, without the rush to SLI. That is my point.

Interesting perspective, and quite eloquent at that. I agree with your assessment from the NWA side. Big pay raises, DC increase, improved work rules, furlough protection (albeit rather hollow), a stronger company for all, and apparently still getting some sort of credit for near-term retirements in the SLI process. Nice job, and I couldn't agree more.

However, from the Delta side, there is almost nothing in this TA that's an improvement over the present status quo, including LOA 19, and the SLI remains a crapshoot. For the junior Delta pilot, the risk of this TA passing is far higher than from it failing. Standalone Delta is already looking to resume hiring in the fall.

I'd prefer to send this back to management explaining that we're going to need significant improvements over Letter 19 (for both pilot groups) to encourage us to sign off on this. The worst thing that can happen is no improvement over LOA 19, which is pretty much what we've got in this TA anyway. Eventually, there will be a JPWA, which won't be less than LOA 19 or the Delta pilots won't vote for it, nor will we support a joint contract that doesn't include parity for NWA, so essentially, there is very little risk in turning this offer down, while there is lots of risk for little reward (especially from the Delta perspective) in signing off on this now.

I was under the impression that the no furlough clause in LOA 19 and the JPWA protected against furloughs due to the cost of fuel as well. Is that not correct?

Very, very well said. There is nothing in the deal that we don't already have.

Folks seem to think this "deal" (I think it's more like "sodomy") will prevent furloughs. The greatest risk of furloughs would come after certificates are combined (at least for DAL guys) and not before. Rejecting this agreement will have zero effect on possible furloughs.

We can do better.

This is a persistent misconception. While NWA has slightly more cash on hand than DAL ($3.187 bn vs. $2.492 bn as of the most recent 10-Q), Delta's total current assets slightly exceed NWA's ($5.329 bn vs. $4.958 bn). It has been repeatedly portrayed that Delta needs this merger to avoid a cash crunch, but it just isn't true. Delta and NWA both need this merger to achieve pricing power and other size benefits (and hopefully take advantage of the current situation to achieve industry dominance), but either would be among the last legacy carriers standing on their own.

If one were to account for the amount of cash required to bring NWA pilots to pay, benefit, and work rule parity before the Delta pilots see 1 cent from this deal as coming from the pre-merger NWA pot, how would the relative cash positions look? Then we could compare apples to apples on where the additional JPWA bennies are coming from for everyone. Again, not trying to flame-bait, but don't act like we're getting some big raise from your pot-o-gold.

The equity split that has been reported is fair and...well...equitable, as it should be. And anything less than pay parity is a non-starter for us as well. I have absolutely no interest in any disparity in compensation between the pilot groups in the JPWA, and I understand that inherent in that is a disproportionate increase in pay and work rules for you guys, and I'm fine with that.

I just hope you understand my perspective that a rush to ratify this TA (compared to LOA 19 alone) appears to bring hardly anything except the increased risk of furloughs for the Delta side while giving quite a bit of monetary benefit to the NWA side, and you still keep your dynamic SLI advantage, apparently. (They're still "your" near-term retirements, but it's "all of our" furloughs, deliveries, and future retirements.)

Obviously, the devil is in the details, which we haven't seen yet, but from what we've heard so far, putting yourself in a DAL pilot's shoes, would you really vote for this, SLI sight unseen?