I’m not disagreeing with anything you’re saying, but wasn’t the VB thing cancelled last minute because Delta wasn’t willing to work with us with the AM JV? They were violating our scope clause (or on the path to violating it) and wouldn’t agree to terms regarding the whole JV, so DALPA said, if you won’t work with us, we are done working with you.

That’s my recollection, anyway. Im not saying it was right or wrong.

That is not the reason Dalpa put out.

So did we put out or pull out?

IIRC, the VB concept was sold as this rational win-win bipartisan thing. We requested a heads up, recieved a heads up, then a last microsecond head fake pivot (BOS vs MCO at first, etc). Why? Because apparently an inch of flexibility will equal a mile of "we do what we want because we can." OK, and so did the union. No biggie.

And yes, while other flagrant disregards of the most important section in the PWA were happening (and continue to happen).

And it was never a grand slam revolutionary issue for either side anyway. If it worked out, the high water mark may have been very slight benefits for one or both sides, maybe. It was only a thing because we could pull it down at any time, and we pulled it down at any time. Overall an extremely minor issue and one I hope doesn't make its way back into the PWA but if it ever does, it should come with another instant pull down clause.

There was no "name calling" nor were we in a "disagreement". He voiced his opinion and I replied with mine. It's a discussion. I will give you that mentioning that his comments that I highlighted were "Curley-esk," was stooping to the same level as what I felt he was doing by making those comments about the MEC's tactics. For that, I apologize. Thanks for straightening me out.

I don't feel "insulted." The whole VB thing had errors on both sides. I won't keep rehashing them. I do believe that thoughtful disagreement is a good thing, whether between the pilots and the company, or between pilots on a message board.

See there. We agree.

Part of the reason we declined to continue the extension to trying VBs was the company was handling SILs in a manner that benefited few at the expense of many more. Trying to find the bottom of how low pilots would go on compensation (40 hours? 25 hours?) to take the month off. They said they were doing this in categories that were overmanned....AFTER declining RCC requests in the same category. Those RCC requests conveyed the wishes of pilots looking to improve their QOL but the company wouldn't hear it. The union also asked that overmanned categories yield more vacation weeks in those overmanned months (another seniority-honoring QOL enhancer)... to no avail. Since the company sought to solve manning imbalance only by lowest-bidder SIL seekers while telling DALPA to pound sand regarding solutions pilots actually wanted, I fully supported their halt on VBs. Good learning on both sides.

^^^^this! In my supposedly massively overstaffed category, we have KLOAs offered, yet no vacation move-ups allowed. Along with that, the extra X-day has hardly every been offered, yet we almost always have plenty of coverage.

Hey you guys, it’s “-esque.”

My read on the SIL was a d*** measuring contest the way it went down. No arguments about how poorly the SILs were being used, however I would like to see them come back in a revised form. Such as -

1. Extra X day must be used to offer an SIL.

2. RLL to some lower (more jr) number that still achieves reserve coverage.

3. Some limit on ALV to offer SILs. I don’t want an 85hr ALV while others take month off.

4. Company offers X number of SIL. They then have to fill at least that many. Pilots then bid SIL by number hours pay they want. Pilot X bids 60hrs, pilot Y bids 55. Pilot Y gets the SIL.