ASA State of company

[exeagle]

Did anyone get a chance to attend one of these meetings in DFW? Any new news?

 

[sleepy]

Here is the Readers Digest version: everything is great, we are meeting our goals, don't worry, be happy.

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

Yep, pretty much standard, canned 'stuff'.

 

[asapilot]

Reading between the lines

For the most part, it's true, it was pretty much what you'd expect. We were last in everything, now we're not last(read: we're next to last now), and we're going to do better in the future. Go team. There was lots of specifics on what we need to improve, with not so many specifics on how we're going to make it happen. The specifics he did mention were things we were aware of, ie. ATL airport renovation, ACARS, new gate management software, etc. The good news is, it appears the company is finally making a real investment in the infrastrucure that will give us the appropriate tools to meet our goals. The thing that wasn't addressed was the workplace attitude and how they plan to foster a better relationship between employees and management. All the new stuff isn't going to take us far if we still have the same workers using it.

The most interesting things I thought were those not explicitly said and the differences between this talk and what we heard from Drew three weeks ago(see my previous post about Drew's talk). The first was regarding aircraft deliveries for next year. It's still 15 planes which he said were to be used primarily for upgrading service. However, he also stated explicitly that there will be growth in ATL and DFW next year. Drew took a much more "no new growth" approach in his talk. Also, Drew told us that we were a very small sliver in the big Delta pie. Skip's presentation, however, showed that we operate 17% of all Delta flying, second in DCI to Comair at 20%. DCI comprises 55% of all Delta flying, bid D doing the other 45%. I believe the rest of the breakdown was Skywest 10%, and CHQ and ACJet 4% each. So, don't underestimate our importance to the big Delta picture. Finally, I posed this question to him: "3 weeks ago Drew told us that we had no money and Delta would not give us money to exercise any of the options that we currently have and we should not expect to see any aircraft beyond the 15 we have coming. Now we're presented with an RFP for 45 aircraft. What changed in 3 weeks that suddenly made this financially viable for Delta?" I was very happy to see that this question put him on the spot. His first response was "I don't want to disagree with Drew, but I have to disagree with Drew." The rest of his(and Brian's) answer was basically this: We were able to secure a better deal with Bombardier for new aircraft than that which we had on the existing options. Therefore, the Delta board, in their October meeting, agreed that it was financially possible to obtain more aircraft. Regarding Drew, he said that Drew did not have this information at the time. So, I never asked what kind of aircraft they were, he just offered that they were coming from Bombardier. So, at least that might put us a little more at ease that Chiquita isn't going to be the likely recepient. One positive is that Skip seems to share our distaste for Chiquita's presence and seemed to not be pleased that we were all being played against each other. Thought I don't know how much I can buy into it, he did seemed to express a committment to putting out a good bid on the RFP regardless of the outcome of our negotiation status. He said he would meet with the MEC personally to lay out exactly what the company thinks is necessary to be "competitive" and what assurances the company can give us in return that it will be worthwhile. I personally still have a lot of issues with the whole idea, but I came out of it with a better sense that Skip does have ASA's interests in mind and the screwjob is coming from higher up.

My realistic hope is that, growth or not, at least the new tools will help us become a better operator and we can have a little more pride in the work our team does. Skip said he felt confident that we will be competitive and receive some aircraft and I hope he's right. I've noticed though that we too have many folks with "young guy entitlement" syndrome who are willing to give it all away without question to be able to throw another stripe on thier shoulders. We have the responsibility to look out for all members of our pilot group, but 9/11 has taught us all patience and I hope we can look a little further down the road than just how many captains we can upgrade next year.

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

They still have not adressed the PROBLEM in ATL. You can upgrade gates, gnd equipment, ACARS, gate 'management' (?) software and all the other hardware but it still does not fix the main problem, the people who don't give a crap about doing the best they can. gate agents, rampers, fuelers, catering, cleaning etc. Not all of them, alot of them are the best, they care, go way beyond and try and show the others how it should be done. I make dam sure those folks know it too. I go out of my way to go up to them and say thanks. The rest...need to get the boot off the property...now. Unfortunately, won't happen...hmm wonder why.

 

[wil]

Great post asapilot! I have time to look at the RFP and even though it ticks me off that we have to bid for the flying I have no problem negotiating 2 years from now if the company is serious about backpay.

The economy is picking up and will continue to build steam. People are returning to the airport again.

The talk around the lounge last summer was "quality of life" since we would not see too much of a raise because of the economics. But 2 years out we can go for quality of life and pay- without a doubt!

If we ever had a chance to raise the bar for our industry I think 2 years out is our best shot. I am not excited to be a "lifer" as the cement dries around my feet but I think we have to put personnal finances aside and look at the bigger picture! All the best-

 

[PA-44Typed]

We did just hire a lot of new Ramp Agents. The quality of theses folks seems to be a LOT HIGHER THAN NORMAL. I was told by one of the leads that they are trying to raise the bar on the kind of people that they are hiring. So maybe I will actually be able to do my job without having to wake up all the (insert your term here) sleeping in the baggage carts.

 

[wms]

2 years back pay is nice, but there should also be an LOA to go with the agreement to include seniority based reserve, long call/short call and commuter clause. An additional 2 years of pathetic existence is not worth a few jets.

There should be a clause that says if we don't get jets then the deal is rescinded and it's back to normal.

 

[rjcap]

wil and wms,

you boys need to read the ALPA board on this topic to get you up to speed. Siging a 2 year extension would throw the contract talks back to year 1 when the extension ends.

Also, the retro pay was going to be alot less then you might have imagined.

 

[wms]

I'm with you. I'm not for extending the contract at all. Read my posts on the other threads. The point I make is there is more than a few bucks at stake especially when living as a commuter on reserve. The second email from the MEC scares me because they seem to think it's worth considering when it is not. Let whoever is willing to sell themselves out have the jets. We'll get our share regardless.

Most don't understand the time involved in this. Scrap all work done till now and start over in 2004. That would mean the status quo until 2006 at the earliest. That is not acceptable with out the QOL issues improved substantially in the mean time via LOA. Hopefully the MEC says no. I would prefer they didn't even consider it, but if they do then QOL has to be better now.