"You are correct in most of your assertions. The 20 year regional guys would never have accepted a staple and the DAL guys never would have offered more. Yes, the PID failed because of massive egos on the DAL side. No, the PID wasn't a "land grab", it was a request for ALPA to follow its own rules. instead, ALPA chose to change the rules. Never before had two ALPA carriers, with significant operational integration been acquired by a larger carrier and not merged into the larger carrier, much less each other.

My question to you is why do you feel this is fair? Why do you feel they were inferior to you? You both do the exact same job for the same company. Flying a heavy doesn't make you a better pilot than flying an RJ. In fact, it probably makes you less proficient simply because you fly less."

These are my points with this thread, not to slam DAL/NWA pilots or seek seniority integration with mainline. The system is weighted to heavily to one side and no protection for regional pilots when mainline buys regionals.
"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"

 

Yes, DAL is only going to hurt themselves in the long run. I fully believe they are very much a house of cards. I do not believe they will be doing well 5-10 years from now.

Meanwhile, they are hiring military fighter pilots with no airline or crew experience, regional FOs who are connected or meet the right demographics, and regional captains right at 1000 hours PIC. Experienced regional Captains above 3000 PIC need not apply, because they are viewed as "untrainable", "undesirable", and too set in their ways. Nevermind that this was the competitive mins in the last hiring cycle. And these Captains who aren't good enough to fly DAL passengers from the right seat of a 110 seat B717 are just fine to fly DAL passengers from the left seat of a 76 seat CRJ900 on the exact same route. Oh the irony.

Yes, if DAL keeps it up, AA and UAL will have cornered the pilot labor market. But hey, they can hire who they want I guess. As the hundreds of signs in ATL say "World's Greatest Employees". Even the 22 year old female MD88 copilot who never commanded an airliner, but now has better career expectations than the 20 year airline captain.

 

Well, us XJers were used as a pawn to bankrupt another company so Delta could rid themselves of the 200, which now they want, because "the market has changed". Then have ALPA tell the pilot group the SSP was just a meet and greet, and where the first several groups showed up unprepared, and got turned down for good.

What's the saying, "**** flows downhill".

 

It was by no means a sure thing. ALPA policy is great, but we can't just decree that all airlines hereby shall be merged and then go tell management to make it so. It has to be in CBA(s) and it has to be fought for. The DL/AS/CM scenario would have required a lot more than a procedural PID resulting in a decree from the union to the company to "make it so". A lot more.

The timing was perfect though. DL and CMR had the leverages of a strike, ASA wasn't too far behind and all three books were open.

But when ASA/CMR tried to get more than a staple and hiding behind "the process" the group with the most leverage (and the one that would have had to pay the most in bargaining to facilitate something like that) was completely alienated. The other 2 groups stubbornly stuck to their greedy little fantasies and decided to "go for it" within ALPA and then in the courts.

Then the big recession/attacks happened and DL furloughed over 1000 and ASA/CMR hired many thousands. This was masked by the emotionality of the resignation issue to become a new hire at the bottom, but the whole thing was a dysfunctional mess for everyone. Throughout it all, ASA/CMR thought they had the upper hand and leverage and that the courts would grant them seniority to fly DL mainline equipment.

Fast forward several years and ASA got sold to SkyWest, CMR is gone and DL is hiring thousands.

It may or may not have ever happened. There were a lot of variables at play and a lot of check valves to get past in the flow chart. It would have cost money to do as well. You don't just tell management "hey guess what we just decided you're going to do". And that money would have mostly came from DALPA and DL management at contract time. DALPA and DL management had all the leverage. All of it. It could have still possibly happened if handled right. But if it was even going to be seriously tried by all parties, an iron clad staple prenup was the only way it would have stood a chance. Essentially suing to get in front of an arbitrator to "go for it" instantly tanked the effort.

 

Come back with an iron clad prenup with a staple below anyone on the list as of 01-01-2015 and we can have a serious discussion about it.

Follow its own rules to get more than a staple, for a "merger" that doesn't have to happen by contract? Right. You can't point to operational integration while ignoring contract realities. Even if ALPA said yes to your sacred and honorable "process" that maybe could have just so happened most likely given you way more than a staple over current DL pilots, how would they make DL management actually do it? So DL pilots would have to go to bat to pay for your seniority land grab?

Right.

The 20 year regional guys should have gladly accpted a staple as the high water mark and never even attempted for more. But that's what it was all about all along. They saw an opporunity and they went for it. They thought they had leverage and they had none. They thought they'd pull a parliamentary and procedural trick and their dreams would all come true. They tried and weren't successful and now we are where we are.

Both sides can blame straw men stereotypes like the RJ pilot on one side that thought he would become instant 777 Captain and the mainline pilot that demanded his squadron buddy never have to fly anything under 100 seats or whatever. While there were examples of individuals on both sides with those attitudes, neither is what actually prevented it from happening. ASA/CMR launched an assault on the DL pilot seniority list and they demanded unconditional surrender from day one because they really thought the system would get them in front of an arbitrator and they would become senior to current DL pilots all the while trying to act like righteous victims just wanting fairness. Thankfully they were not successful.

 

Regional longevity is always reset. That's just a fact of life. People that make a clean break from the military also experience a "reset". Lawyers, firefighters and accountants that become pilots push the reset button as well. So what. Its a long standing part of the foundation of the industry.

I still don't see why you keep predicting DL regionals, and only DL regionals, will collapse and everyone else's regionals will thrive and conquer. It check every box of the hubris test, yet you seem too smart and level headed to be in it that deep.

DL regionals are going to collapse, to the point of possibly collapsing DL, because AA and UAL are hiring DL regional pilots. But AA and UAL are going to do just fine even though DL is hiring thousands of pilots. Um, OK.

Its one thing to play the "pilot shortage!" card in general, but how exactly is whatever you predict going to slam DL and not the others? They're all kiting checks right now scrambling to hire eachother's regionals and no one wants that to not work more than me. But exactly how is this a DL problem and not equally an AA/UA/etc problem?

 

Oh ok, now I get it. It was hubris. I guess you're entitled to some. I still don't see how its going to play out worse for DL like you predict/wish.

 

I see most of Mesabah's posts as little more than sour grapes. He has no desire to move on, declined SSP, and just wants his ship to sink so he can move on to the much bigger & better things that await him. All of his doom and gloom outlook is really wishful thinking on his part.

 

Most of the SSP failures, especially initially, were the result of not preparing. Many failed the cognitive test by not preparing. Many showed up lax and entitled and that ends things very quickly. More than one showed up with a box full or 20 mini crew log books.

 

It's not doom and gloom, it's called missing out on huge opportunities. Delta should be solidly number 1, not 3rd. As a businessman I despise seeing stuff like this.

No where have I predicted the collapse of Delta, hardly, the last post I made in L&G was predicting record profits.