737 Pylt said:
If, by any means, you think that surplus (of all people) is a union thug, you obviously don't read these boards too often...He is not a big supporter of alpa, or is it that he just hates mainline pilots....I can't figure it out!
737
I'll try to help you. No, surplus1 doesn't hate mainline pilots or any other pilot. He does dislike pilots, mainline or otherwise, that are selfish to the point of harming others or arrogant with a superiority attitude, i.e., too full of themselves.
Surplus1's peers and friends, with only a few exceptions, are all "mainline" pilots both active and retired. Those once at your company are all among the 2300 or so that left and I miss them. They date from the time when most Delta pilots were gentlemen, in contrast to the current time when few mainline pilots, at Delta or elsewhere, can even identify with that term. It is foreign to them.
My guess is that most if not all of them, including those still active, predate your tenure as an airline pilot by a very long time. It's a different era and I miss both the self-respect and respect for each other that was once a part of this profession. Your generation seems to have brought with it nothing more than your flying skills. Surplus1 thinks that's a sad state of affairs. Mr. d'Angelo, whoever he is, is reflective of that "new breed"; usless in my book.
You're right, surplus1 is not a union thug. He once was a big supporter of ALPA and still supports the concept of a union, but he does not support ALPA's current administration and its policies; and that goes way beyond the office of the president. He thinks that ALPA's policies are as much responsible for the current debacles as is management for those policies have provided management with the means to take us back 20 years plus. He would like to see ALPA on the way back to its former self and would prefer it to be more of a labor union rather than the pointless "federation" of pilots-against-pilots that it now is and has been for well over a decade.
Hopefully that gives you some insight.