You do realize that for the wholly owned regionals, their HR dept is typically the mainline HR dept. For example, the past decade AA hasn't hired; but the HR dept was kept busy doing Eagle hiring. There is lots of crossover at some of the wholly owneds. Take the AA Public Relations spokesperson Andrea Huguely.... or should I say the American Eagle spokesperson Andrea Huguely.... she switches public relations titles as needed for whichever AMR subsidiary needs the spokesperson, but her ID says AA on it. Much as many of the management positions of Eagle are done by people carrying AA ID's, not Eagle ID's. To say the Eagle pilots haven't already interviewed at AMR is a joke.

I've had a few of the Eagle flow-thru's who ended up being food boy on my crew. They have proven to be extremely capable FO's, and I have no doubt they were excellent Captains at Eagle before coming here.

If I had my way, from the job performance I've seen from them; I wish they'd just assimilate the whole lot of them. The few bad apples would get found out soon enough.

 

Excellent reply and thanks for your candor. Probably right with apples and oranges but then if DAL had the ability to buy out NWA, would all the NWA pilots have to be tested and interviewed at DAL? Probably not, but when a major buys out a regional historically it has not been a very good outcome for the regional pilots in the long run. Do you see any inequity there?

As far as furloughed pilots, why is there so much resentment towards regional pilots? It seems to me regional pilots had nothing to do with any mainline pilot furlough. Fellow mainline pilots however did when they gave up scope which ultimately allowed more mainline pilots getting furloughed in the first place. Without any agreements or flow up or down what could regionals have done for furloughed pilots or was it just easier to direct resentment towards regional pilots then at their fellow mainline pilots?

I did not advocate a "short-circuit" as you say. I said keep it like it is and so for those that go to the mainline have to get the interview and test.

 

Aren't a large amount of your pilots there without ever being interviewed by DAL? What's so great about their interview process compared to SWA or FDX, for example?

And why are you against your union wanting to hire members of your own union?

 

As I said in my post: "I'll admit up-front my knowledge of regional carriers is limited". I meant that as an honest disclaimer. As a Delta pilot I am most familiar with what goes on here. Both Comair and ASA were wholly owned by Delta. My recollection is Comair did the hiring at Comair, ASA did it's hiring and so did Delta. I'm not aware of any mainline Delta involvement in the hiring processes at either ASA or Comair. Maybe it happened, but I'm not aware of it.

I'd agree with you that it hasn't worked out well for the acquired regional pilots. (Again this is based on my memory and could be wrong.)

There was a great deal of bad blood between Delta pilots and Comair pilots. To be honest that's a very long story in it's own right, but two things come to mind: One was the RJDC (Regional Jet Defense Coalition), Two, after 9/11 I believe it was the Comair MEC, rather than try and help Delta pilot furloughees, insisted that Comair management require furloughed Delta pilots to resign their Delta seniority number as a condition of employment at Comair.

There was also what was perceived by mainline Delta pilots as a "seniority grab" by Comair pilots, and IIRC to a lesser degree by ASA pilots. The gist was since they were now part of Delta the seniority lists should be combined and, oh-by-the-way, lets do it by date of hire. A Brasilia captain with lots of longevity wanted to slide right over to the left seat of an L-1011. Well how do think that went over with Delta pilots?

You're right about the "short circuit". I should have directed that part of my response to "all" rather than you.

I've never interviewed with SWA or FDX, so I really don't know what's different, and truthfully my Delta interview was more than 20 years ago. You're also right a slew of pilots didn't interview here. I think there was some pain and some "bitterness" after the DAL-NWA merger, but IMHO that's behind us and the "melded" corporate culture is stronger.

I'm not against hiring fellow union members. I want Delta to hire the best applicants, period. Whether they're from another ALPA carrier, a non-union carrier, the corporate world or the military I don't think it should matter.

 

Thanks for reply (replies) and sorry if it appears like ganging up. Not my intent. I think many might say Comair went about things the "WRONG" way! Pinnacle did not require NWA pilots to resign seniority and it would be absurd for a major pilot to do that unless he had no intention of returning.

To sum it all up we need to find ways to be more in unison as if we're on the same team rather then apart. The more apart we become the better it will be for management to have contracts that favor management and not pilots. In essence whipsaw. Good luck to all

 

Then it is probably best that you refrain from posting things that simply are not true.

Bigotry and ignorance only get less becoming with the repeating.

The stupidity can be funny though. For a long time the D-ALPA response to nearly any and everything was "Comair pilots will get date of hire." They rolled this tired scarecrow out to justify kicking Compass out of our MEC. Of course they forgot that even the NWA pilots did not get date of hire, so as our Chairman explained his theory that Compass / Comair / whoever, would get date of hire the NWA guys started shouting, Comair? Comair! then the rest of what they said can't be repeated here. But I guess it worked ... my yard boy wanted to go from $70 to $90 per mow. I told him, "if I paid you $90 Comair pilots would get date of hire, I can not do that." He looked at me quizzically, cocked his head sideways and took my 70 bucks.

For the real answer, look below. Mergers and who gets to merge is part of our PWA.

... and please understand, I am not calling you stupid ... I'm just characterizing the lie that keeps getting repeated as dumb. Particularly so since the some of those who started the stories are now having to deal with the backlash created ... called the DPA. Their frankenstein came home for dinner.

 

No.

Most mainline contracts permit outsourcing with certain limitations. At Delta that standard is 76 seats and 86,000 pounds. This "permitted" definition has greater importance in a merger.

In a corporate transaction an airline which operates non permitted airplanes gets a merger. Those who operate permitted aircraft do not.

So, ALPA has an entirely different representational standard if you have two seats installed under the PSU's in the back which make your airplane a 78 seat jet.

It has nothing to do with your airline's hiring standards, whether real or imagined.

 

Legally you may be right. But you are also looking at this from a better vantage point then most regional pilots are. Morally and ethically this does not seem fair to the regional pilots nor feel like we get equal representation. In essence what you say is size does matter and if you're small you haven't got a chance.

 

That is exactly what I'm stating.

You get equal representation on your own property, but you are screwed on the mainline property.

To explain how things got this way.

After Lorenzo transferred Eastern's assets to his wholly owned alter ego, Continental, and Continental left ALPA, our union was determined to never let management whipsaw us again. ALPA adopted strong language designed to prevent whipsaw by forced mergers. Delta was a beneficiary of the Texas Air mess and was never that fond of mergers (or ALPA) for that matter. (there was a abortive decertification drive then too)

It is likely the Delta MEC had advanced notice that Delta intended to buy ASA and Comair (can't prove it) but we do know the Delta MEC led a push to remove that merger language at the 1998 ALPA BOD.

Concomitant with the denial of Comair and ASA's merger request, ALPA adopted this "permitted" model which divided ALPA members into preferred and non preferred groups.

Without a real merger policy, there was no way to force real, structural, unity. In effect ALPA agreed to alter ego whipsaw, as long as it existed at the permitted aircraft level.

The perception was, and is, that express jobs are not real airline pilot jobs. That for some reason your flying, which indistinguishably mimics the flying I do, is simply a stepping stone to a real job ... and only real jobs should be protected.

But if you look at ALPA's history and it's governing documents you will quickly realize that we have reason to be hopeful that our profession will turn itself around.

Dave Behnke, ALPA's founder, famously stated "when one pilot has a problem, we all have a problem." Recently I've been noticing Capt. Behnke has been quoted by more and more mainline MEC Chairmen. That's a very hopeful sign that folks are taking another look at our roots, how we got here, and what worked. As more and more pilots who have experienced whipsaw first hand join their major brothers the politics change. As the politics change the politicians change policies. I think we are on the precipice of great things.

 

Thanks Bar, I may not like or enjoy what's happening but I appreciate the information. It's to bad more here cannot use education as their basis for replies.