787s for Delta? Huh? Rumor alert....

[FDJ2]

Exactly.

If the SLI does not happen by fall, Delta will have to start hiring again to staff the 777's and 737 deliveries.

Whether or not the SLI happens by fall, DAL still needs to hire. The SLI is not implemented until their is a joint contract and a single operating certificate. We have plenty of time to work out the SLI, but the joint contract ought to be the priority at this time. ALPA merger policy will determine the SLI, there is a path towards that end. Regulators and the FAA will determine the date of corporate closure and single operating certificate. However, together, we determine when to engage in joint contract negotiations. The sooner the better. Hopefully completed prior to the date of corporate closure, but definetly ASAP.

From the Delta MEC resolution AI 08-S09A passed on April 12, 2008:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the Delta MEC welcomes the Northwest pilots as partners in the building of the new merged airline and looks forward to working with the Northwest MEC to bring about the rapid completion of a new joint agreement to take effect on the closing of the corporate transaction providing immediate parity in rates of pay and further providing for a rapid completion of a fair and equitable integrated seniority list to take effect on the effective date of the new joint agreement....

 

[jkkdca]

Backdoor deals? What backdoor deals? If United signs a contract with management tomorrow have they thrown the Continental pilots under the bus?

The DAL pilots have been rewarded for going along with the merger in the form of LOA 19. The MEC has said many times they would not allow a bad merger to go through. See Usair's try at us. The MEC sees the merger with NWA as a good thing for Delta and its pilots in the long run.

It is a fact I believe reported by both NWALPA and DALPA that the contract and the equity had been agreed on but it was the SLI that was not. So I keep hearing these NW pilots say hogwash to what we DAL pilots tell them when it comes to the contract and equity. They never heard anything about it. I say again, I know DALPA is saying the contract and the equity was agrred to. I think NWALPA said the same in a memo.

What were the terms agreed to? Basically LOA 19 but a little better. This would have been for all pilots. NWA and DAL. Immediate 10-15% pay increases for the NW side to get up to parity with us, plus 7%,4%,4%,4% over the next 4 yrs. So NW says no deal and we remain seperate for now. Are the DAL guys are supposed to walk away from those increases because the other side said no? Please.

How are we throwing you under the bus when this would have been yours and you agreed to it if we could have come to an agreement on SLI. When I hear other airline pilots talk about this issue I really have to wonder how much info they really have other than some guy saying "I got thrown under the bus". Hey guess what I'll say this. "I got less because of the NW pilots wanting to staple me to the bottom of the seniority list and DALPA wouldn't have it!" How exactly did the NW guys get to be such the victims?

Delta offered relative seniority +-1-2%. I know, I know, "Bull! My reps didn't tell me that!" Well better go ask again. How exactly (this is for the airline X guys too) is this throwing them under the bus? Especially when you consider DAL has almost twice the widebodies (including both sides 757's, which at DAL pay as much as the 767) so that the same relative sen. will get you closer to widebody pay than at NW.

So to recap, had the SLI which I described above been agreed to, NW would have gotten pay raises, equity, and a better chance at higher paying flying sooner than standing alone. But alas that is not good enough for them. They wanted all the contract and equity and the icing of SLI for themselves as well. From where I stand at DAL, I gotta tell ya, I don't feel like I threw anyone under any bus.

Where did I get this info from? My reps who briefed us in the lounges regularily during the whole fiasco. Plus alot of friends in different bases who heard the same things from their reps. But of course this surely cannot be true because who would turn down such a thing. The Delta pilots must be lying, stinking, filthy screwers of other ALPA pilots right? Who in theie right mind would turn this down? In this economy! With the price of oil where it's at!

That's what we are asking at DAL.

 

[JAM-BRO]

FDJ

I ran into one of our MSP reps today at NATCO. I asked him about these allegations and he denied them. He did say that Stevens was on vacation, but that the merger and negotiating committee reps were in the office those two weeks and did not get a call from DALPA. Since you are connected, if you have any evidence of these communications, be they emails, faxes, phone records, etc, please make then available. 5,000 eager NWA pilots would be wanting some explanations for such blatant and gross misrepresentation. I am serious. I am tired of being in the dark. I just can't see why our negotiators(NWA & DAL) are unable to find common ground.

Thnx

Really? Well perhaps you should ask your MEC Chairman what he did after he was told in late March by the DALPA MEC Chairman that their was a new timeline for a merger announcement.

Perhaps you should ask your negotiating Chairman whether or not he was told that if NWALPA dragged its feet again that DALPA wasn't going to lose another opportunity.

Perhaps you should ask your MEC Chairman how his vacation went and how long it took him to respond to the negotiations that were ongoing.

Perhaps you ought to ask your MEC Chairman if he was offered an opportunity to join in the negotiations and what his response was, before you continue to cast stones.

Oh, that's right, you don't believe in timelines. The entire world must wait on your willingness to act.

We are where we are. You can choose to participate in joint contract negotiations, or you can choose to light your hair on fire. The invitation is out there, the choice is yours. Just quit blaming others.

From the Delta MEC resolution AI 08-S09A passed on April 12, 2008:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the Delta MEC welcomes the Northwest pilots as partners in the building of the new merged airline and looks forward to working with the Northwest MEC to bring about the rapid completion of a new joint agreement to take effect on the closing of the corporate transaction providing immediate parity in rates of pay and further providing for a rapid completion of a fair and equitable integrated seniority list to take effect on the effective date of the new joint agreement....

 

[jkkdca]

Planedrvr, I'll tell you what. If any other airline furloughs this fall, just call them up and tell them that you and some of your buddy's from your airline would like to get furloughed instead. Doesn't make sense does it. It's the same when the DAL and NW seniority lists are not integrated.

Also even if we had negotiated SLI, there still would be a period before Delta got the single operating certificate that the two companies would be operating seperately anyway.

Stop blathering useless comments that have no basis in fact please. Better, just stay out of our business. You are of no help.

 

[Speedtape]

Oh well, alpa let CAL back and now we have a president of alpa who benefited from EALs demise. Should we expect more.

Well, actually, if I remember right, Delta benefitted the most from EAL'S demise. Interestingly enough, the ALPA President was a Delta Pilot, who should have called for a National Strike to stop Lorenzo and could have saved EAL. However, there was more to gain by sitting idly by. Peach Tree City, was an Eastern stronghold--after the shutdown, Delta pilots found cheap real estate available there.

 

[~~~^~~~]

Well, actually, if I remember right, Delta benefitted the most from EAL'S demise. Interestingly enough, the ALPA President was a Delta Pilot, who should have called for a National Strike to stop Lorenzo and could have saved EAL. However, there was more to gain by sitting idly by. Peach Tree City, was an Eastern stronghold--after the shutdown, Delta pilots found cheap real estate available there.

The Eastern pilots walked out in support of their mechanics.

Under Lorenzo's tenure, Eastern was crippled by severe labor unrest. Asked to accept deep cuts in pay and benefits, Eastern's mechanics and ramp service employees, represented by the IAM (International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers), walked out on March 4, 1989. A sympathy strike called by the pilots represented by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Assn.) and flight attendants represented by TWU (Transport Workers Union) effectively shut down the airline's domestic operations.

In your view of history ALPA should have called a "National Strike" at the demand of Charlie Bryan, a Machinist? What were the NWA pilots doing while their mechanics were out on strike? So you are saying even though you did not support your mechanics, ALPA should have called a "Nation Wide Strike" to support Eastern's?

I hate to bust your chops, but there are no comparisons between you and EAL.

Your MEC has taken a no win position. Their stated goal is to stop the merger. Everyone else is extending to you olive branches and invitations.

The rub is, that the "no win" solution can become a self fulfilling prophesy, with the greatest harm coming to you. Is it worth denying yourself $30 so someone else does not get $7? That is all that has been accomplished thus far.

I'm not trying to make you mad. I hope you and your leadership change your minds. Delta is a good place to work, you will like it here - and - as a matter of fact, you are going to be a Delta pilot, so you might as well figure out how to make the best of the opportunity.

 

[tblosser]

So you want to be furloughed? Because if we took DAL's last offer, 500 plus, for years.. Now, remember , we will be downed to 58 DC-9's by the end of 08. The MSP-ORD-DTW route alone needs approx 10 planes by itself, so I don't think you will see the rest parked anytime soon. Anderson was involved in the Re-configuration of the DC-9, so he knows that even with high gas, it's a good 100-125 seat plane. Let's hope the DAL boys and the senior NWA pilots don't give any more scope.

If the NWA pilots are brought up to the Delta work rules they are 500 pilots short just to cover their current flying. Combine this with a good no furlough clause and the future deliveries from both sides there should not be any furloughs. Baring another 9-11 type event

 

[PuffDriver]

Ira funny that nobody has any real information of substance about what has really transpired, yet everybody has already taken their "straw polls" and formed their opinion to string up the Delta pilots by the short hairs over something that they know next to nothing about. Then they start to quote history and bring up Eastern, and Pan Am, and Republic, and Orient.

Gnash, gnash, gnash. Management because of this stupidity running rampant amongst the "average line pilot. This is the guy who will go off about something in the contract before somebody points out to him that if he would actually READ the contract, he would know that it does indeed NOT say that.

All have crucified Moak, and portrayed NWA as the victims. Yet what HAS come out, and the sniff test, tell a very different story.

Hardline tactics are not going to work. Jump on the ALPA National board, and receive the same education that the NWA pilots are getting. Some of those guys were actually in on some of the action that took place. How many NWA guys "in the know" have shown up? None.

Think about it.

 

[ExAF]

Yep

I have many friends at most every major carrier, and my "straw polling" begs to differ. What your leadership has done is not sitting well with the average line guy at "Airline X". Then again, what do you care. After all, Mr. Moak has made it quite clear on many occasions (long before this merger started to gain traction) that he doesn't care one bit what anybody else at another ALPA carrier thinks of his leadership and decisions. Fair enough, but lots of people out there won't forget this. Will it make a difference? Probably not. Just realize that, from now on when you're walking through the terminal and another ALPA pilot is staring at you, they're probably not admiring the bright shiny buttons on your uniform coat and wishing, "Oh, if only I were fortunate enough to be a Delta pilot."

In my opinion, if Prater had any balls and if this union was actually a union instead of a "gentleman's club", he would cut you guys off at the knees and refuse to sign off on LOA 19. Won't happen in a million years, but it should.... And everybody out there who wears an ALPA pin and a single-breasted blazer understands that.

Spare me your "We need to work together rhetoric." You and your ilk have no desire for us to work together. "We need to work together" roughly translates into, "We think we negotiated the upper hand by sticking a knife in your back, so accept the lot that we give you and quit whining." Ain't gonna happen. You came to the table with a proposal that was unacceptable to us. Then, after you had more or less locked up a back-door deal with your management that you think gives you the upper hand, you come back to the table with a worse deal and expect us to fall all over ourselves to take it "while the gettin's good." You have brought nothing more than a pitifully weak argument to the seniority list integration table. While I admire your leadership's desire to bolster their weak negotiating position and look out for their own pilots, their strategy of resorting to "back door deals" just kind of makes me sick, and by my take it kind of makes most everybody else that wears an ALPA pin to work sick as well.

After growing weary of the ilk on FI, I took a "vacation"'t for a while and haven't participated in any of the BS tha't been flying here. However; this post is right on and accurately reflects the feelings of all of my friends at various airlines (except for some, but not all at DAL). From where I sit NWA pilots are under the bus and watching as the bus prepares to throw it in reverse! I could go on, but, I'll leave it at that.

 

[Truckdriver]

From where I sit NWA pilots are under the bus and watching as the bus prepares to throw it in reverse! I could go on, but, I'll leave it at that.

They didn't get thrown under the bus, they saw a "bus only" lane, crawled out into it, laid down, and the bus ran over them. Now they have the chance to get out of the lane, but it looks like they might just lay around for the next bus to come along.