Ominous, I'm sure you guys had to be dragged kicking and screaming down the jetway to fly those CA and QX tails, right?

Especially at DCI, if somebody's winning, someone else is probably losing. And while it's easy to think of them as "our" jets, one thing Comair taught me is that in reality we only owned a handful. The rest are borrowed. And even that doesn't matter when Delta controls your block hours - our minimum fleet guarantee kept a lot of birds on property for a while, but it didn't stop management from storing them in droves in Old Remote in CVG.

As BlueMoon points out, the tail number doesn't always tell the whole story.

Hope you get out before the other shoe drops...

 

Short memory Ominous? Hardly.


The vote in Spring 2005 (2003 was pretty close) was 61% to 39% in favor of a two year pay freeze in order to get the next 34 CRJ/ERJs Delta was going to award. They even flew in an EMB-175 to convince the pilots that new planes were on the way.


Due to a backlog from the Bombardier strike, Delta was unable to get any new jets on property by the deadline (June 10th, 2005 if I recall). So what's the Delta Regional Holding Company to do? Grab a couple planes off the ASA certificate and shift them to Comair.


Comair didn't bid on another carrier's aircraft, Comair negotiated for undelivered aircraft. It was Delta's greed and lack of planning that took those 50s from ASA.


Our pay freeze kicked in and three months later... Gasp! Delta sells ASA and files BK! ALPA didn't see that one coming.


That was the high water mark of Comair's fleet. Planes started leaving a short time later.


So who got the 34 aircraft Delta promised to Comair? You can figure that out for FREE if you're not too DUM.


A year later Delta announced an RFP for a quarter of Comair's aircraft. Plenty of regionals bid, and when Delta gave away over half of our 700s to ASA and SKW, Delta cited their own actions as evidence in BK court. They convinced the judge that if he threw out our contract, then Delta could stop shrinking us.


When you bring up karma, which part of this were you refering to?

 

I almost was going to tell you to not argue with blowhards just like I suggested to Blue Moon, but then I read your post.




What was that? Boomer slamming a ton of knowledge down!

 

I wasn't at ASA, sorry... But have friends there who worked with the MEC.

I did some checking, and ASA got 3 GECAS (-3A engines) when Comair was on strike. ASA pilots were going to refuse to fly them until the two MECs got together and agreed they were both ok with it. ASA pilots showed an immense amount of support to the Comair pilot group.

How was this repaid? Comair pilots taking a pay freeze (read: concession) while the ASA pilots were in a hostile negotiation of their own. To add insult to injury, the planes needed to fulfill the agreement (which you are correct boomer, Comair mgmt dangled the emb170 in front of JC and co) came straight off of ASA property.

So you are now pi@@ed that planes are leaving your property and going elsewhere, and all I am saying is that the shoe is on the other foot. Delta owns the planes, so they can decide (you said so yourself in regards to the ASA birds). So why were you ok with it then and defend it, but now you are not? That is karma!

Funny how when someone challenges your thoughts they get labeled a "blowhard". We have a saying for that kind of thinking, and you're full of it.

 

Ominous, the shoe's been on the other foot for years now, so you're a little late to the party. DAL chose where the airplanes came from, not us, but then pilots love to blame other pilots for DAL's misguided decisions. You're not exactly an original thinker on this, but if you really feel the need to beat a dead horse, by all means, flail away.

 

Not sure why I'm bothering to respond to this, but oh well...

I agree, DAL chose what planes go where. I disagree that the pilots were not even partly to blame. Comair pilots got burned by the 'real airliner' carrot (read: SJS). you want unity against 'evil DAL', yet the Comair pilots were all quite ok straying from unity to get shiny new (or newish) jets.

Lesson 1: never take concessions for growth. Business simply doesn't work that way.

Lesson 2: don't throw a pilot group, or groups, under a bus and then expect unity from them when your chips are down.

I digress, as my original point was, and still is, that it is ironic to hear Comair pilots on here complaining about other regionals taking 'their' airplanes. But hey, good luck to you all. I mean that.

 

Really I have not heard anyone complain about other airlines taking Comair planes. In fact, most of the planes are being sent to scrap or to foreign carriers. Remember, Comair had the oldest of the CRJ's and they are approaching the end of their useful life (unless a lot of $$ is spent on them). Comair is not losing planes, it is shutting down (slowly). It is the only wholly owned DCI carrier, and Delta knows they can get a cheaper company to fly the routes. In the past five years, the pilot group has gone from around 1500 to 700 (?). Not sure, I'm not there. The airframes from around 150 to 44 by the end of this year. Even the management is running from Comair, because they see the end is coming.

I don't know who would blame other airline pilots for taking planes?? We are all just pawns in the whole scheme of things. Pilots are like bus drivers (except bus drivers make more $), the boss tells you where to fly, and you fly. You have no say in routes or schedules...or if the company gets more planes or loses planes. One group I do blame for some of the problems at Comair is ALPA. Not only back during the strike, but over the past 4 years, where they did nothing to try to mitigate furloughs. No offer of reduced lines, no offer of part-time, nothing. Instead, they asked for money for a merger fund...with the fantasy that Comair would be bought or merged with the (at the time) other DAL wholly owned carriers. Where is that money now? Did they return the money to the hundreds of pilots that have since left Comair (by choice or furlough)? Nope, they still have the money...and a fairytale dream that the planets and stars will all align and Comair will find a way to survive. Ask a furloughed pilot if his merger money, still not returned, could make a difference in his/her life, help pay a bill or two, or buy some food for his family. Instead, their money is being held just in case....
I've said it before, I'll say it again....RUN! Get out! Get away from DCI! Do it now, because soon (sadly) there will be a crap load of Pinnacle guys out there looking for the same jobs!

 

That's so well said, on every level. It always irritates me to hear pilots use the expression "our flying" as in they're losing their flying to somebody else. But even more kudos to the tidbit about making a career of a regional. AE, Pinnacle and specially Comair are prime examples of this. I'm at Compass now, and while things are calm here for now, I sure know that won't last long. At least it seems like the message has gotten thru to most of our pilots. I think we have only 2 or 3 guys who have opted to say in CP should they have the option to flow to Delta.

 

I will say it again. DONT LET DELTA WIN!!! We are in this together.

 

Not so sure about scrap yard thing. Go to the west coast SKW seems to have a lot of CA birds out there