Comair MEC burning bridges with Delta?

[General Lee]

PCL 128,

It is good that you have friends at Delta, and when things eventually turn around, you should ask them for their help in getting you an interview. I am sure there will be plenty of ASA pilots, some military, and a handful of others with connections. There probably won't be any hiring until we get back every furlough, but things really do move fast in "up cycles." According to the zero manning formulas given to Dalpa by Delta, if the Code share deal went through with Continental And Northwest (which it did by the way), they would need about 1100 pilots back by the end of 2005. So, that equates to potential hiring in about 3 years. In the mean time, keep flying that beautiful RJ---the glass in that cockpit makes the transition to the 737-800 or 757 pretty easy.

Afellowaviator,

Delta can hire whomever they want. Does this whole mess mean that no Comair pilot will ever be hired at Delta? No. Will the interviewer (probably a retired Delta pilot) ask you which regional you flew for? Ummm, yes. It's up to them at that point.

Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[AFELLOWAVIATOR]

General, I am glad to see you finally come around to the fact that Comair pilots have little to worry about. I really do like your name, by the way.

 

[General Lee]

Afellowaviator,

I am glad you like the name------it's Southern in nature and I like the TV show and Daisy Duke. Anyways, I give up. You win. I can't take it anymore. This is getting redundant. I just wanted to make a point that some of us wish you guys would help some of our furloughed pilots. Sure, a lot of you didn't have a say in this at all. I can understand everyone's frustration. This situation has gone from bad to worse. Your views may be 180 degrees opposite from your MEC's. IF you want to help the furloughs, then speak up to your leader, if not, well ok. Anyways, good luck.

Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[InclusiveScope]

General Lee,

You are blaiming the Comair pilots for not helping out furloughed Delta pilots when the blame lies with your MEC. The Comair airplanes are owned by Delta. According to you and your MEC, you also own the flying done by Comair. If you own that flying and Delta owns those aircraft, then it is the Delta MEC's fault that those pilots are not sitting in those aircraft.

InclusiveScope

 

[sleepy]

You cannot discriminate in hiring based on race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, or disability (except pilots). You can discriminate in any other way you desire.





Um, you had better get the law books back out. My sister is a Lawyer. According to the law, if the Delta pilots got Leo to go along with your petty revenge scheem, he would be open to a ton of law suits. She has been practicing for 20 years and represents people who have been turned down for employment for many, many reasons other than what you quoted. One company was purposely not hiring OSU alumni. Seems the President hated OSU, he was a Texas Tech.grad from years ago. Some one spilled the beans after a lot of OSU people got suspicious, and my sister petitioned the court for an enjunction against the discrematory behavior until it could be heard in court.
The President was removed (fired) and a HUGE cash settlement was made to 128 people. It was a publicly held company with a lot of business in Oklahoma. As a result, they lost a lot of contracts with Oklahoma companies.I don't think LEO will be too interested in putting up the companies cash for you guys any time soon.

You need to try a little harder to come up with some thing to scare us with, cause your little black balling game don't wash.

Yes, and my wife is an attorney. Her firm has won some of the largest class action discrimination cases in the country in the last few years against large multi-national corporations.

Of course, I asked her what she thought about the potential Comair case against DAL before posting. She feels that DAL would be too smart to leave any evidence of such a policy around for you to find. All they have to say is that hiring Comair pilots would cause disruption in the work place (sort of what Comair management is saying about hiring furloughed DAL pilots).

For a long time AA would not hire pilots from their AE WO's. You had to leave Eagle and go somewhere else to be considered for a job at AA. They did this to keep training costs down. They were discriminating against AE pilots. But, was it illegal discriminatin under Federal Law?

It sounds like your sister's case never went to trial. Again, if DAL does not want to hire Comair pilots they don't have to, and again I ask, how will you know they are doing it?

This is my last post on this subject. What's done is done.

 

[AFELLOWAVIATOR]

Afellowaviator,

I am glad you like the name------it's Southern in nature and I like the TV show and Daisy Duke. Anyways, I give up. You win. I can't take it anymore. This is getting redundant. I just wanted to make a point that some of us wish you guys would help some of our furloughed pilots. Sure, a lot of you didn't have a say in this at all. I can understand everyone's frustration. This situation has gone from bad to worse. Your views may be 180 degrees opposite from your MEC's. IF you want to help the furloughs, then speak up to your leader, if not, well ok. Anyways, good luck.

Bye Bye---General Lee

Fair enough, but let me say one last thing on the subject. Our relationship with Delta is why we Comair pilots feel we are being wronged. We are owned by Delta, all profits are Delta's, all aircraft are Delta's, ect. ect. . But we are suppose to accept that another pilot group, which fits the same description, has all say over our careers as pilots. This is what the RJDC is all about. It would of never come about if we were not owned by Delta. We would not feel we had any say. From day one, our MEC has attempted to adress this issue with the Delta MEC, although they could of gone about it a little differently, they have tried. I truly feel the furloughs should not of happeded. We all should of worked some thing out. The company could never transfer pilots over to us because they would risk there single carrier status. This is the "HOLY GRAIL" to them. So we would have to push it. When we were both in talks with mgt., that was the time to do it. Having three pilot groups on the property only helps mgt., not us. I would of loved to see you guys simply transfer over, but that will never happen as long as we are fighting.
Our MEC sees all this, and felt a responsibility to the pilots they represent to bring it up at the meeting. I feel your MEC should of at least discussed it, it affects all of us.

Respectfully, Me

 

[surplus1]

THANK THE LORD IT DIDN'T.... Yeah, thank the Lord Delta pilots won't have to fly with you some day.

If that should happen their loss might well prove to be my gain. In any case, I will lose no sleep and that's a promise.

I wonder if you will have the same attitude when ASA pilots are flooding into Delta to fly 737-800s and MD-88s as FOs (maybe 3-4 years out) and you guys at Comair are flying the Saginaw shuttle again... You can thank the grey-haired MEC leaders for that.

If it makes you feel happy I'll say it again ... my attitude will remain unchanged until the Delta MEC changes it's attitude. ASA pilots are my brothers. If they want jobs at Delta and get them it will not bother me at all. The anti-Comair rhetoric from Delta pilots I will simply continue to ignore for the most part. I attribute it to lack of knowledge and frustration. Most Delta line pilots are really OK guys they are just having trouble showing it right now and regretably they are allowing themselves to be used as political pawns by their MEC. Besides, I've grown accustomed to being told what creeps Comair pilots are whenever they don't bow down to the wishes of the Delta MEC. It's water off a ducks back.

We never flew a Saginaw shuttle. However, we did fly the Delta Shuttle from DCA to LGA and BOS. The Delta pilots picketed us for doing it and ALPA sued Delta. Did you know that? Guess what? If the Company asks us to fly it again, we will.

I do thank the grey-haired Comair MEC leaders. Also the one's with blonde hair, brown hair and no hair. They've been doing a good job of defending the best interests of Comair pilots for many years and I hope they will continue to do just that.

You JUST DON'T GET IT. If you want to fly for Delta someday, then do what you can to show your support - just like Delta pilots did while you were losing your strike.... They supported you monetarily (do you remember that? huh? are you ungrateful?) - and now you are screwing the furloughees - some of whom are Comair alums (like Fanman)... I suppose you should learn from Cher who said it best, "If I could turn back time..." Big mistake.

You know what? I'm sick of hearing how many assessments the Delta pilots paid and how much money they allegedly donated. The fact is they paid no more assessments than any other ALPA pilot and the other money they gave was minimal. To those who gave voluntarily and don't want to remind me constantly of their generosity, I say thanks. If Comair needs to hire pilots as a "pay back" for strike aid money, then we should be hiring the furloughed pilots at American, and United, and saving one in case the UPS pilots ever need it. Those are they guys/gals that gave their money willingly and don't spend every moment reminding us, not Delta. I think you are the one that "just doesn't get it".

Didn't the Delta MEC allow the "alums Fanman" (I don't know the gentleman) to retain his Comair number when he was hired at Delta? Are we supposed to get upset because a pilot left Comair voluntarily and it didn't work out? I don't think so. Do I feel sorry that it happened. Sure I do. I feel sorry for every furloughed pilot regardless of his airline.

The basic problem I see from most writing in this thread is that a great many, both Delta pilots and non-Delta pilots, don't seem to have any idea of the history of relations between the two pilot groups or why they have reached the sorry state that they have. That even includes some of the CMR pilots posting, who appear to be very new with the Comair and also unaware of the history. When those Comair pilots come to understand the true history of the Delta MEC's behavior towards Comair pilots, they too will understand why their MEC is not bending over.

When Delta pilots are not "in trouble", they don't hesitate to vilify Comair pilots and their MEC does not hesitate to attempt to do us harm. When things go wrong for them, they expect us to rush to their aid. When you spend a decade sh*tting on your "friends" you shouldn't expect too much when you find yourself in a jam. Particularly when that "jam" is the direct result of your own negative behavior in the past.

If the Delta MEC was really interested in getting the CMR MEC to help furloughed Delta pilots to get jobs at Comair, it would not take a publicly pre-announced DMEC resolution, it would not take a threatening letter from the DMEC Chairman, it would not take bogus promises on which you can't deliver and it would not take threats to "go public" against the CMR MEC or any other political ploy. All it would take is a simple phone call saying "we're in a bind and we need your help, let's talk about it".

All the fan fare and public announcements and hype from the DMEC that has preceded and followed this political orchestration make it more than clear that the motives of the DMEC were anything but an honest effort to help furloughed pilots. The hypocrisy is so thick you can walk on it. The Comair MEC merely saw it for what it was. Good for them.

The Delta MEC Chairman got a lot of furloughed Delta pilots and others to shout and threaten and curse the Comair pilot group but he sure didn't get even one of them a job. He did accomplish his objective of inciting Delta pilots against Comair pilots. Try and see through the smoke and mirrors. It's a sorry sickening mess.

Accusing the CMR MEC of using Delta furloughees as "bargaining chips" is ludicrous. The Comair MEC didn't ask anyone to bargain for anything, in fact that is the card that the Delta MEC used .... their own pilots. All the CMR MEC did was say no to a bogus proposal. No surprise however, the Delta MEC has been using the jobs and careers of Comair pilots as their bargaining chip for years, so it comes as no surprise that they have now thrown their own junior pilots into the arena. Politics is truly a dirty business.

 

[NYRANGERS]

You know what? I'm sick of hearing how many assessments the Delta pilots paid and how much money they allegedly donated. The fact is they paid no more assessments than any other ALPA pilot and the other money they gave was minimal. To those who gave voluntarily and don't want to remind me constantly of their generosity, I say thanks. If Comair needs to hire pilots as a "pay back" for strike aid money, then we should be hiring the furloughed pilots at American, and United, and saving one in case the UPS pilots ever need it. Those are they guys/gals that gave their money willingly and don't spend every moment reminding us, not Delta. I think you are the one that "just doesn't get it".

You are right. Why don't you try to help out some of the furloughed United and American pilots? It may not help us Delta guys, but at least it would help some major airline pilots who could use a flying job.

 

[AFELLOWAVIATOR]

We recently hired 40 ex- US AIRWAYS pilots, and I just finished up an ex- United pilot and an ex -American Eagle pilot. I begin a crew next week, one is ex-United and one is ex-ASA. The ASA pilot said he did not like the atmosphere at ASA. I did not question him on that, have no idea what he meant.

 

[FlyingSig]

You know what? I'm sick of hearing how many assessments the Delta pilots paid and how much money they allegedly donated. The fact is they paid no more assessments than any other ALPA pilot and the other money they gave was minimal. To those who gave voluntarily and don't want to remind me constantly of their generosity, I say thanks.

Surplus,

I think you let your emotion get the better of you there... IMHO, the main reason you read about assesments here so much is because guys like SDD are constantly proclaiming how little the Delta pilot group did during your strike and that's what many (including myself) are sick of hearing about.