First of all, when DAL accepted and ratified an agreement that had 76 seat regional jets, that became industry standard. It is incredibly difficult to negotiate for more restrictive than industry standard. It becomes a game of what are you willing to give for it. Second, SWA is not a fair comparison because their business model is totally different than ours. They don't feed into a hub and spoke system. They have a linear route structure. Also, it was Legacy Airline Pilots that allowed scope concessions for more pay over a decade ago. Once, the horse is out of the barn, it's awfully difficult to get it back inside the barn. That's why DAL's TA is so important and so will ours in the future. When you negotiate a deal, you really have to look at it as the language is going to be there for a long time.

I see another huge threat to our scope as seen at DAL, which is less restrictive language regarding joint ventures or code shares.

 

^^^ Well-said.

 

Do you REALLY think it's that simple?

First, There's a well written post above about industry standard.

Second, if you don't think the UA pilot group would not be in the same position today as the FAs AND Mechanics had they not voted in the TA, you're not being intellectually honest.

 

On the bus from the Airport to the hotel where the EWR roadshow was a pilot got on and was furious about the TA and said he would be voting no. I told him I hadn't decided yet and was going to wait for the presentation. I asked him what part he didn't like and he said he hadn't read it yet but it didn't matter he was voting no. He was visibly shaking when he told me.

What he really was telling me was that he liked the artificial bidding economy that existed and wanted to do anything possible to maintain that, and voting no was certainly a way to do it.

 

That is the traditional thinking.

Going forward, I hope we start ignoring the "industry standard" concessionary deals.

We negotiate with UAL management. That's it.

I don't need a new contract. The one we have will suit me just fine if the alternative is to give up more jobs.

I don't want DAL pilots to negotiate for me. I really don't care if the company whines about the "new standard". I'll keep pointing at Southwest, Jet Blue, Virgin and all the other airlines that do their own flying. We CAN negotiate that way. We're just afraid to.

 

We are nothing like those carriers. Southwest is not hub and spoke. Jet Blue and Virgin are much smaller.

Our business model and Delta's are the same. So we are like them and not like Jet Blue or Virgin.

Also the current United isn't like the previous United nor precious CAL. Its much bigger, needs much more feed, and this is how we do it.

We can fly the jets that are 70 seats. There is going to be a cost. If you think we don't live in a Zero Sum negotiating world you are sorely mistaken.

 

Didn't happen. Making up BS!

 

Need the feed, need the feed, need the feed. We esp need to fill the WB's they promised to order. How did that work out again For UAL pilots in the actual number of flight dept positions? Ironically pilots at both CAL and UAL provided so much feed to management that we managed lost a lot of good customers to companies like Jetblue, Southwest, and VA.

 

They just ordered 10 more 777s and they've added 15 more A-350's and 15 more 787's since the merger. So that's 40 more WB aircraft.

So ya, they've ordered more WB.

 

At some point when does the economy of scale principle start to come into play. Sure we need the feed, but aren't we just feeding the feed? With an operation so vast and all encompassing aren't we generating our own feed to feed the feed? With a "check mate" style merger I would have thought that we fed the beast with a superior network already. We could likely capitalize on the route structure by maximizing profits on Prasms with up-gauged aircraft because the feed is already there. I see us with limited ability to generate revenue because our aircraft on some routes are too small. With limited slots and gates it may be a matter of up-gauging the feed and the downline output.