For someone so smart you sure say a lot of dumb things about the contract. I can’t figure it out. You’re handing out free investment advice on Brazilian petro but are petrified that somehow we’re going to ask for too much. You’re so financially squared away, I’m stumped at your continued alarmist warnings.

 

As a Delta guy, I am hoping you are able to do this. That combined with our snap up keeps wages moving up. It’s called pattern bargaining at its best. Our current rates are based on your rates that were based on the TA we voted down in 2015. Pattern bargaining there too.

 

Not sure I agree with the words "petrified" and "alarmist", and I would love to no what "dumb things" you mean, but I'm the first to recognize and applaud the fact that we are all entitled to our own opinion and interpretations of facts.

Now I'd like to expand my thoughts on the topic you seem to be referencing. Namely that we U-ALPA will ask for too much and therefore push negotiations on for years and not months.

First off I should say that several weeks ago I was, in fact, concerned that the MEC would make an offer to the company that was so far from what was acceptable that we would end up taking years to get a contract and not months. I no longer think that is likely. I was concerned because my back of the envelope calculations put the cost of delaying a new contract very high on an individual basis. Therefore the gains to be had must be substantial, in order to take a delay, and THAT equation seemed very out of balance to me. As I said, I do not consider my posts on this topic to be "alarmist" nor do I consider myself "petrified". I perceive my comments as attempting to moderate the expectations of the younger members eager for big gains. However, I do also realize I may be out of step with the times. To wit:


I have been extremely fortunate in the world of investing, and I attribute my success to having taken a conservative approach based on the teachings of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Peter Lynch. In recent years I have been a bit puzzled by the number of successful investors who completely forsake some of the fundamentals outlined by those three gentlemen, and the extent to which companies now trade at PE multiples that seem utterly fantastic. What I now realize or rather believe, is that times and investor logic may be changing and my mode of investing and method of valuing stocks may be a dying one. Younger, modern investors, lean more towards Momentum Investing versus Value Investing and therefore do not fear high PEs. In fact many modern pundits argue that PE is no longer a useful metric. Clearly both methods work, and times have most definitely changed.

So, how does this apply here? Well, my views are from that of a 57 year old with 27 years at United. It may well be that younger folks (which I assume you are based on your comment history -but my apologies if I am mistaken) have a very different view of what they both expect and think is possible in terms of "gets" in the next contract, and if so then it will likely be reflected in the outcome of this round of negotiations and my "Hat's Off" (literally) to the younger generation.

JP - The Alarmed and Petrified Pilot

 

Delta definitely changed the calculus of what seemed possible, but remember we’re not catching up with Delta, we’re catching up with inflation. (I don’t actually know when Delta went amenable, but I’d be interested to see a breakdown of their contract rates against inflation over the time between their amenable & signing dates.)

My best reference of whether we’re actually getting that LOA 5% is whether the “New TUMI” DOS increase exceeds inflation since 2019 or not.

 

Deltas contract was amenable EOY 2019.

 

There is an LEC update that says cumulative inflation from Delta amendable date to August 2022 is 17.1 percent. The Delta pilot raise is 18 percent effective January 2023. The Delta pilots are behind inflation.

They have a fancy chart, but you get the idea. The pay rates, signing bonus, DC contributions, and deadhead section were never negotiated. That was all settled via the take it or leave it option at the end. DALPA had very little say in those sections so they are the weakest sections of the TA.

 

1.023 * 1.014 * 1.070 * 1.065 = 18% inflation 2019-2022

What am I missing? Delta's TA is 18/5/5/4 pay raise and 4/4/18 retro, no? So, the combo of pay & retro exceed inflation, that is so long as you accept the statistics on the website I used for inflation data.

 

Retro doesn’t cover current inflation, it just bridges the gap over the overdue years. So unless you do a year over year breakdown of retro pay that exceeds inflation creating a surplus, you can’t really count it in DOS rates. Either way, based on the numbers provided, it looks like they are at least very near inflation, which is an area I think we should be pattern bargaining to meet & exceed.

Point I’m making is we should care less about the Delta rates & more about the standard of bargaining against inflation.

 

Positive space commute with the commute flights built into pbs and part of the pairing builder, so your commutable line is built automatically with the commute flights built into the sequences! Pbs will build you a schedule to/from your home airport and book the non rev tickets.

 

that’d be amazing. People living in base would have a cow, though.