ASA...Furloughs?

[Beavis]

Gen Lee, youre right....you are. It just seems you always jump in on the attack of Comair/ASA. You have a chip that we are to blame for the woes of Delta, i.e taking former Delta flying; always talking down to the regional pilots from your position of superiority. Thay is how I feel every time you hijack a Comair/ASA post. I understand how you feel about the Comair MEC, but it doesnt have to show in every post.

So....post away.

And by the way, I think the Emb120 is an Embraer Brazilia.

 

[General Lee]

Beavis,

Is ther a "z" in there? You might be right. I can't remember. All I remember is losing most of my hearing on that thing. It was fun and fast, though.

I don't try to "look down" on any of you. I enjoy my job and have always thanked the ASA guys for helping our furloughs. The Comair deal is their deal, and I have tried to stay away from that topic. I would never try to put any of you down, and I do not think the RJ flying has taken a lot of our flying away. I have always stated that the RJ has been good for us (the whole company) and it does very well on "route finding" (establishing new routes to see if they would be profitable for mainline) missions. The only times I have ever said anything about mainline getting some of the 70 seaters (not any of your current ones) is when I am trying to figure out what we should do with our 1310 furloughs. I am not going after you, but rather trying to help them. My opinions are sometimes a little crass, but I mean no harm. What can I say? I am opinionated.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[sleepy]

Hey DB, he was responding to rogerroger's brilliant comment.

To come back to the issue, I don't see ASA furloughing.......unless we (Dalpa) relax scope to the 90 seater. Then MESA will have a more "beneficial" cost structure than ASA and comair and will have to compete with yet another portfolio carrier. I would expect if this were to happen comair and ASA will loose ALL 70 seaters to mesa and chatauqua.

Funny how our scope is indirectly protecting ASA and comair from furloughing.

Good luck all,

NYR

They could give them (70 and 90 seaters) to Mesa with a J4J to hire your furloughed pilots at their slave wages. I would enjoy watching that. Go for it!

They would still make more money by giving 90 or 100 seat aircraft to ASA and Comair because they get to keep all of the profits when the aircraft a full. It only takes about 45 pax on one leg of an ASA CR7 round trip to break even. Everything else is pure profit, and it's not cheap to ride on us.

 

[Anaconda]

And by the way, I think the Emb120 is an Embraer Brazilia.

what is the point of that quote? to correct his spelling? it's with an s, not a z...

gen lee, i was asking more about the opinion of your mec, not your personal opinion. i was recently told by an aca pilot that the aca mec stated it was the opinion of the delta mec, just wondering if it was fact or an urban legend...

 

[General Lee]

Anaconda,

I don't think our MEC wants to pull you guys into any concessions. I think they will let Delta management ask for it. I don't really know, but I think our guys will leave you out of any financial contributions, which is good for you guys. I think management will go around asking everybody for contributions, but started with us to see how much we were willing to give. (Since we have a contract that isn't amendable until May 2005)
If they could get a larger portion from us, they could ask for less from everyone else. That aint gonna happen. I think they might squeeze 10-15% (not the 31% they wanted), and then we would ask for something in return--like snapbacks or contract extensions. We will pitch in, though.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[skiddriver]

They would still make more money by giving 90 or 100 seat aircraft to ASA and Comair because they get to keep all of the profits when the aircraft a full. It only takes about 45 pax on one leg of an ASA CR7 round trip to break even. Everything else is pure profit, and it's not cheap to ride on us.

[Sleepy, I know that you know this, but for the casual outsider]

It costs the same to fly on Delta or any DCI carrier over the same route. The profit for Mother D changes depending on who/what's flying and how the load falls out. Plenty of overlap in the system.

 

[rogerroger]

wtf

we recognize a problem and will help, but for a price.

and then we would ask for something in return--

ok, what possibly could you want in return. you guys are so out of touch on the whole thing it is fkn rediculous. something in return? give me a break. you guys have the easyist jobs out there and all you want is more. how many days off do you get, how are you trip or duty rigs,(not even sure what they are because we don't have them!!!) how is you vacation, 401k, retirement. guess what, a hell of a lot better than ours because WE GET NONE OF THAT SHT!!!! so tell me, what is it that you expect to get in return for you pay cut. please enlighten me.

 

[General Lee]

rogerroger,

Calm down buddy. That is why people generally want to move up to the majors, for better pay and schedules etc. I did not say we wouldn't help out, we know there are some problems out there. What I mean is that when things eventually get better, and they will someday, can we have back what we give away today? Oh yes we can. That is the price. We want snapbacks or maybe a contract extension to keep what we have a little longer. What is wrong with that? We fought for this last contract, and we now see that Mother D might need help, but how about in 2 years when things are rolling again? Remember what Leo said to us when he came on board? "A Contract is a Contract." We don't have to give anything right now, and things are getting better. We instead will help out, but want most of it back someday. Is that greedy or just smart?

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[~~~^~~~]

Funny how our scope is indirectly protecting ASA and comair from furloughing.

There is nothing in ALPA's scope policy that keeps DAL from operating any "permitted aircraft types" anywhere they please. ALPA made that same nutty arguement to the Judge in Ford v. ALPA , the Judge said ALPA had no basis for that assertion. I'm just wondering what ALPA is basing this latest buffoonery on.

 

[~~~^~~~]

The only times I have ever said anything about mainline getting some of the 70 seaters (not any of your current ones) is when I am trying to figure out what we should do with our 1310 furloughs. I am not going after you, but rather trying to help them.

General Lee - you want to help your furloughees, then try to stop your MEC's failed scope policies. Since you like history, you know that if your MEC had not fought us at the 2,000 BOD every one of your pilots would be flying now.

Everyone is at the Delta table, you guys are in full blown section six negotiations. Why not try something different, like brand scope? Meet with the ASA and Comair MEC's and come to the negotiating table together with a system scope solution. That would get rid of your RJDC nemisis and there are plenty of block hours being flown by non ALPA Connection carriers that should be restored to the "Delta family."

 

[General Lee]

Fins,

I know we are in full section 6 negotations, but DALPA really doesn't have to give a dime if they are pushed in any way. What they are doing is trying to chip in a little and get something in return, like a contract extension. As far as SCOPE, I don't know if they will offer anything. I bet we will give in on allowing for more 70 seaters, though. We know Delta wants more, and the price is probably right. The Delta family has done very well since 9-11, excluding the mainline pilots. We have lost a lot to furlough, and Comair has shut them out. I wish we all could have gotten along better before all of this happened. But, the Scope issue was important because Delta would have unloaded almost all of the mainline jets after 9-11, and had 1000 RJs with 8 777's as the fleet. Scope is protection. We need a certain number of mainline jets--and the ratios and percentages reflect that. It might not seem fai, but we need some protection. I look forward to the day when things get better and mainline won't care if COMAIR/ASA get an extra 50 70 seaters. Maybe it will happen soon.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[~~~^~~~]

But General Lee - why does scope have to exclude Comair and ASA, if a better answer included Comair and ASA? Our alter ego threat and your alter ego threat are the same thing. We have a lot more in common than we have separating us - in fact - other than DAL MEC politics there is not much that separates us. When will the junior Delta pilots figure that out?

Someone posted that the DAL MEC is a reflection of the Delta pilot group. ALPA is certainly the image of the Delta MEC. I always hope the sea change will begin at the bottom of the Delta list.

 

[Catbird]

General Lee looks like Armando over at the Alpa message board. If it isn't, he's serving Armando the same batch of Kool Aid. He's been spewing over there ever since he came off probation.

 

[sleepy]

A guy with the last name of Gomez who likes redneck things, interesting.

 

[General Lee]

Sleepy and Catbird,

Well, I won't give out my name for obvious reasons, but I think I know who you're talking about.

Fins,

How would you include ASA/Comair in our Scope clause? I am curious. How can you make it beneficial to everyone?

Bye Bye---General Lee