The SLI is out and it is time for us to move forward togather as one group. There is some fear that furloughs may be coming to our new combined list in the near future. Before we allow the company to do such a thing we need to hold them accountable to the JPWA and the change the NWA work rules to fall in line with the DAL/JPWA ratios. This would create a shortfall of 300-400 pilots.

It would surely mitigate a good number of furloughs on both sides. Before SOC if one side is short and the other side furloughs then the MEC can come up with an agreement to allow pilots to flow from one side to the other.

Thats my suggestion anyone else have any?

 

Yes.

Drink...heavily.

Carl

 

That is what would happen. No further agreement is necessary.
The furloughed pilot would go to whatever category had insufficient bidders on the side that is "short".
At Delta, that category is usually NYCM88B. At NWA it is usually DTWDC9B.

 

Carl-

I am in interested in your thoughts. Does this affect your career at all (I am talking about the arbitrators' decision not the merger) other than what management might do with the 400 which we as labor have no control over? In other words, do you think this merger award advantages any pre-merger Delta pilot over you? I propose this question with respect and am not trying to be spiteful.

 

That may already be in the works. The CP's newsletter in NY just out stated with the most recent fleet plan they will be short about 175 pilots for the summer schedule however political issues with the SLI would preclude hiring. I suspect he meant that pilots would be shifted from one side to the other to cover the shortage.

 

I sure hope you're right,that would be the fair way to do it.

 

If the company tried to furlough from one side while the other side hired, due to timeing on the single op certificate, this would be very bad...

At the very least there should be a LOA from Dalpa, very soon to include or new brothers and sisters, to paper hire those pilots at the bottom of the Delta list and then return them to their previous place on the list when the SOC is granted. Yes, for a very short period they would actuall be a new hire at Delta, pre-combined, but that would be a small price to pay...

Actually, it could work out fairly well for those guys, girls because they would have access to the Pre-integrated bases and aircraft.

My idea...

Slinky

 

Yes- only the extremely obvious one. Delta froze, then terminated the Delta Pilot DB plan. The former NWA pilots still have their frozen DB. I don't know of any precedent of merged ALPA pilots flying together where one in the cockpit has a pension and the other does not. This needs to be addressed and fixed.

As a 1990 hire, I had accrued a fairly significant pension at time of freezing and termination, yet my PBGC and bankruptcy recovery cover only a small portion of that. If, as Bastian has been trumpeting up in MSP, Delta is committed to its employee's pensions, then Delta needs to admit its illgotten windfall at terminating its own pilot's pensions and make the DAL pilots whole.

One suggestion might be a "matching fund"- i.e. money used annually to fund the NWA pilot pensions be matched for the original DAL pilots on the basis of their shortfall and added to their DC plan.

Soup

 

An interesting point that no one is discussing is the fact that the PBGC can go back to a company and make them resume their pension obligations that were turned over to the PBGC. DAL during bankruptcy got some five year deal with the PBGC that prevents them from coming back to Delta to do this until the end of the five year term. I believe we have around 2 1/2 years left on this. It's my understanding that if the PBGC feels DAL can resume the pensions they can force Delta's hand on this. So, the battle as I understand it is far from over.

 

Excellent point. I recall also that during the USAir attempted hostile takeover of Delta, Georgia's senators told USAir that "If you can afford to buy Delta, then you can afford to reinstate the pensions you terminated at USAir" and threatened to make that happen if the hostile takeover succeeded.

Funny how that subject never came up when Delta moved on NWA.

Soup