So how does Lee Moak compare to John Prater? What should we expect from him as Alpa head honcho? What is the feeling from his as Dal Alpa leadership time?

There's an internal push at DAL for DPA, I think that says a lot.

By not pursuing unity, ALPA is making itself increasingly irrelevant. When ALPA represented 100% of pilot labor at the major carriers it had an important, authoritative command voice. Now that we're down to less than 50% of flying at most majors and shrinking, we do not hold the same status we did. Eventually it will not matter what our minority position i s.

ALPA's is going to have to get out of the business of trading one member away to benefit another member. That will be the measure of this President.

I support him and hope for all the best under his administration.

Correction. There was a SMALL internal push for an alternate bargaining representative.

National doesn't have much "real" authority, but they do have a much better ability to influence aviation related issues in DC than the independent pilot unions.

ALPA is actually rather efficient organization given the number of things accomplished against the budget it works with. The bigger issue is the "professional ALPA" members who started out being completely pro-pilot and wanting to do all kinds of good, get sucked into the "political machine" that is present in ANY bureaucratic organization, and end up with a mental disconnect between line slugs desires and the organizational desires.

Where is this expedited security screening process we were told to expect in the first quarter. You know since we're "trusted partners" and all. We are in February and I haven't heard a single thing about it.

Neither. Can I opt out?

Had an interesting conversation with someone "in the know" a couple of days ago. Moak (Mr. Marine) is turning ALPA National into the Pentagon.

Hope he appreciates the political clout ALPA has on the Hill. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have the "Union" mentality" since he refused to support the other labor groups on Delta's Union drives.

What does your statement mean?

Is he arranging tables into 5 sided shapes, locking down information, setting up C4ISR? What do you mean, speaking without the metaphor?

It doesn't matter who is in charge. Until National represents all pilots equally instead of the top 10% we are all screwed. National is a political machine and nothing else. The sooner we as members understand that we are secondary to the main goal of National the sooner we can start to fix the problem. Essentially it is taxation without representation. A phrase all Americans should be familiar with.