Sorry.

Just trying to keep the buckets fair.

A C-5 fly over is pretty cool.

At the end of our contract in 2015 our CRJ 900/200 rates are 115 and 108 respectively for year 15 and 99/90 for year 10. What they could do which I am sure about 90% of pinnacle would be happy with is lock in our current rates until the end of the collective bargaining agreement 2015, at which time new rates negotiated with DALPA or DPA would take affect. It seems like a perfect opportunity to take back flying thats why i am bringing it up. I know what you are saying about DAL controlling the hiring and understand, however when the numbers start to creep up to over 500 pilots a year you cant be that selective.

Management at Delta would fight that concept to their dying breath. Divide and conquer is the cornerstone of their entire management strategy. It would also put a B scale into place at the airline. That is something I would never agree to. If the airplanes come over they come at full rates.
Even if management were to entertain the concept we would have to show we could operate the aircraft and be competitive with other airlines. We have tried on two different occasions to show that on aircraft under 70 seats and sadly we could not even make the numbers remotely close. Managements numbers showed a even bigger gap. You also have to question if Pinnicle management would want their airline to cease to exist along with their jobs.
The last problem is seniority integration. Pilots will say almost anything to get on a mainline list or to move their list to a solvent carrier when they are bankrupt but when the dust settles and they have arrived all that is forgotten. The lawsuits soon follow. Anything that goes against the spirit of the new federal law would have a chance in court. I suspect SW has not heard the end of their integration. Once the airtran pilots are on the SW side of the fence watch how fast the lawsuits start flying. In that case I think they have a real chance unlike most situations in the past.

on which to hang his shirts?

Really? I bet there will be 25K plus applications. I think DAL can be as selective as they want.

.

There were 5,500 qualified applicants when I interviewed in the summer of 2010.

Its easy when no one else is hiring, i believe it will be a bit different when the doors open again in a couple years when american (if they are still here), us air, united, fedex, ups are all hiring. people will have choices, when delta hired they could be very selective of who they wanted to hire and that is good for them.

Close to 12,000 was the # that I was told by a pilot hiring person that I meet while in Indoc. She said close to 12,000 "very qualified" applicants were currentlly on file.

I thought so too.

However, Steven Tyler's rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner was horrible. Maybe one notch ahead of Rosanne's.