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DAL system:something to ponder (staple)

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46Driver said:
CatYaack,
OK, I'm not English but I am a Marine so I will quote Chesty Puller when the millions of Chinese came screaming across the Yalu River. "We're surrounded - that simplifies the problem. Now I can shoot in every direction." And yes, Chesty did pile up hordes of bodies.... :)

Indeed Chesty did. Before my time but my father was there and remembered those Chinese hordes well. Good to see not everyone has forgotten the "Forgotten War".

But my previous post wasn't meant in any way to detract from the brothers-in-arms spirit, for it's very real and rightfully so. I was rather just thinking about how if one must be baptized by fire, doing so at the expense of the French would be particularily satisfying. Went off on a tangent, I did.

Having had to spend far too much time in France over the last year experiencing first-hand their witless protests, strikes, and insufferable pontificating, it becomes rather easy to lapse into daydreams about being part of Henry's little band.
 
Fins,

Sorry I did not respond to you sooner but I was on a 3 day. I think you were right when you said there was "nothing in writing" about merging the lists, but I sure heard a lot of people talking about it. Infact, a good friend of mine who was an ASA flight attendant at the time told me that the ASA pilots were actually JUMPING up and down, gloating big time that they were going to get date of hire Staple when they tried to pull out the ALPA merger policy. Jumping up and down. I am telling you the truth. They told her that her husband (a former ASA pilot and current Delta pilot) should have stayed, and they were making fun of her. No joke here.

As far as the Fred Reid meeting and Mike Phino saying what he said, I don't know since I chose not to attend. I believe Dalpa will try to protect our jobs and eventually will give in with some pay cuts, but with everyone included. What can I say? This is how we feel and we won't be treated the same as AA or UA pilots because we didn't go through the same situations. We want to help Delta, and I bet we will eventually--with everyone's help. I should think that you would want us to fly more mainline flights so you can increase yours too---with the contract formula in effect.(percentages) the base chief pilots are currently walking around the lounges asking what we want from management--and we tell them to talk to the nagotiators.(politely) I also tell them to throw in some new 70 seaters for our furloughs.

Bye Bye--General Lee
:cool: :rolleyes: ;)
 
General Lee:

I've heard people talking about seeing Elvis at Duncan Doughnuts, your friend of a flight attendant who once new an ASA pilot is not a credible source. That is why I DO bother to listen to folks like Fred Reid talk in person. There are so many ways that what you heard could be misinterpreted, was it to merger Comair and ASA by DOH, then staple, or staple and have benefits accrue by DOH? Who knows and who cares? ALPA's merger policy does not leave it up to crew room gossip.

As far as the 70 seater "growth airplane" goes, you might consider changing domiciles to take the pay cut and fly my airplane. As you have probably read in this thread, ASA has many fewer Captain slots than we had last year and I expect to receive word that I get to return to training to lose my 4th stripe thanks to the displacements.

Things are not as rosy over here as you might believe....

~~~^~~~

P.S. Thanks for working to negotiate a pay cut for employees not even represented by your MEC. As a Captain at ASA I make about 1/3 of what a DAL MD88 First Officer earns. That will be cut to 1/5th as much in the right seat. Then you and DALPA can work to have that cut by another 25% while the DALPA members earn 60% more than the most highly compensated pilot group anywhere on the Planet Earth. But hey, you are trying to take our senior airplane, at least if I were furloughed I would be motivated to get another job, so I've got that going for me - thanks DALPA!
 
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but I sure heard a lot of people talking about it. Infact, a good friend of mine who was an ASA flight attendant at the time told me that the ASA pilots were actually JUMPING up and down, gloating big time that they were going to get date of hire Staple when they tried to pull out the ALPA merger policy. Jumping up and down. I am telling you the truth. They told her that her husband (a former ASA pilot and current Delta pilot) should have stayed, and they were making fun of her.

Nothing like a flight attendant for credible accurate information.

Gen Lee you have reached a new low.
 
RJCap,

My wife is a flight attendant. She was forced to go to Song (a commute too) from Delta or lose her job. I trust her.


Fins,

The friend I spoke about is my wife's best friend. I trust her--you obviously have some trust issues with your friends. As far as pay cuts---you seem to not be able to see that management wants to gut our contract. If they were really hurting, they would go after the easiest pay cuts available---the ones without contracts. It would be easy. But no, they don't want other unions on the property. And, I didn't say that everyone would have to share exactly with the same percentage cut. I don't know what Dalpa wants exactly, but we don't want to be the only ones to give. We are all in this together, and we should all pay. Yes, we are paid better than other major pilots. The Comair guys are paid better than other regional pilots---so I guess they should take a huge cut too, right? (we all are from the same happy family, right?--and that would really really help Delta pay the bills--why shouldn't they contribute too?--I am being sarcastic)

Look, I don't want you to lose your left seat. I thought ASA was getting 14 more 70 seaters next year? Hopefully you won't. Moving from base to base does suck---and I know guys that have fallen from the 767 to the 737-200 to stay in a base--which resulted in a major pay cut. There are plenty of sad stories, and we have more than 1310 of them. I think Delta is going to find ways to cut all of our pay--and that's the real story. Hopefully times will get better and expansion will prevail eventually.

Bye Bye---General Lee:rolleyes:
 
General Lee said:
If we were ever to agree to a staple, it would be after all of the furloughs got back on line--so no one else would be furloughed. But, I don't see Delta management going for it, and I don't see senior Comair/ASA pilots going for it because they already believe they should be in the left seat of mainline aircraft. They might have had a chance to do it pre-9-11, but the Comair/ASA pilots wanted to be integrated instead of the staple. Not gonna happen.

Bye Bye--General Lee:cool: :rolleyes:

If they really wanted to be integrated they should be slapped. Seat protection is reasonable until all the furloughs return which would be done quickly w/ good scope (All DAL flying done by DAL). By the time this merger took place we would have all your guys back anyway. Once they are back if there are furloughs they start at the bottom. If our MEC dismisses that they do not represent me and probably most of our pilot group. But, that wouldn't be the first time.
For the comair lifers: you can even put in some kind of clause similar to Eagle rights, where an RJ captain can never leave the rj, and can never be displaced or furloughed until furloughs reach his/her DOH. Basically, a "rights" captain is integrated DOH (in current equipment only), until he or she chooses to not become a rights captain.
Fair?? I think so.. I still don't see how anybody loses in this deal.
 
Well thought out, Double D. There is the added benefit of your idea really having been tried out as a variation of an existing flow-thru ala Eagle.

Too many times ideas get shot down simply because they have never been tried before. This one has, it needs some modification, however. Just look how much the American pilots keep trying to change it!;)

If the term "flow thru" has too many negative connotations, just call it a "bidirectional seniority stream" or some such inoffensive terminology.
 
The only any kind of integration or staple takes place is if DALPA negotiates it. This certainly defies the whole rjdc's argument, but they are the only ones w/ enough negotiating power at DAL to get it done in a future contract. So naturally it would have to benefit them the most. I think it would benefit every dal pilot that has a number right now because it will give them nearly 4,000 numbers of protection and ensures that all future growth is DAL flying. I hope it is sweet enough. This would be revolutionary and would not be done easy, it would take extreme efforts by DALPA to get it done. But, I believe it is possible.
 
If that is not sweet enough..

AAI and LUV are not stopping. They are flat out stealing market share. Until, DAL thinks out of the box they will continue to lose this fight. Having the kind of flexibility to operate aircraft to meet demand w/out scope would maybe give DAL the kind of flexibility to not only slow down the losing, but maybe beat the competition for the first time in a long time. If DALPA wants to protect their jobs, they should protect their company as well. It sounds like they were trying to do that in the last negotiation but mgmt. was not going to listen and DALPA left the table. Just think how much resistance mgmt. will give if DALPA tried to incorportate an integration in their next contract. None of the three mgmt. teams would want an integration for three different reasons I might add, so this is NEARLY an impossible chance. But, stranger things have happened.
 
COME ON GENERAL

Have you ever given an FA a hard time? If I were part of the crew and the FA had told me that her husband had just left to fly for DAL I would say the same thing. Not to be jerk, but jus to have a little fun with her.
I can't believe you took it to be how they really feel.
 
Airtran and Jetblue are adding planes--they have to grow. Delta is the only major thinking outside the box, with a LCC of it's own that actually will fight their growth. Song was made to combat Jetblue primarily. The flights are full and we shall see after they get all of the 37 757s how they do. If you don't think that Song will cause a dent in Jetblue's profitability, then you are drinking Neeleman's koolaid. I didn't say they don't have a good product, but Song was made to be leaner and meaner than mainline---most of the employees are paid less, the planes fly more, and they will have (in OCT or early next year now...) better amenities. Add on a better frequent flyer program, and it will provide great competition between the two. Airtran also is a great competitor and is giving us a lot of problems in ATL. But, we are two different types of airlines. A lot of the pax in ATL connect through there on the way to other places--like Sao Paulo, or Amsterdam. We have great feed from places like Dothan, AL and Wilmington, NC. I doubt Airtran will fly there, and we fill planes from there and fly people on to New York or San Francisco etc... We are trying to bring costs down to fight with Airtran on the same city pairs from ATL, but a lot of our pax are connecting and only look out the window an notice that nice Airtran 717 on the taxiway. Our management is much more aware of them now, and is trying to figure out how to compete--and they will--that is why they get million dollar bonuses when the others get pay cuts....right?


Bye Bye--General Lee:rolleyes: :cool:
 
Monkey,

Apparently these pilots were literally jumping up and down---with glee in their faces. they thought they had just won the lotto---according to my wife's friend. Sure, I like to raz the flight attendants---who doesn't. But they were apparently jumping up and down. I wasn't there, though.

Bye Bye--General Lee:rolleyes:
 
General Lee

Notice my first sentence did not include JBLU? It doesn't matter what "kind" of airline you are AAI and LUV have positive earnings. DAL does not w/ exception of one time refund. That kind of mentality is the EXACT reason that LUV and AAI are profitable and DAL is not. I'm not interested in AAI right now but, LUV is my number 2 and may well be my next employer, but you have to hand it to them for kicking our A.s.s. the last couple of years. Sure, DAL is in a great postion compared to other majors (except CAL), but I look at it kind of like college basketball: you can fight and win the NIT, but that only means you are the 65th best team in the nation.
 
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General Lee said:
Monkey,

Apparently these pilots were literally jumping up and down---with glee in their faces. they thought they had just won the lotto---according to my wife's friend. Sure, I like to raz the flight attendants---who doesn't. But they were apparently jumping up and down. I wasn't there, though.

Bye Bye--General Lee:rolleyes:

All you have to do is talk to current pilots at Delta who were once at Comair and ASA. They will give you exact names of people who were scoffing at the fact theat they would be junior to those with which they were once senior. Names who, by the way, frequent the ALPA national boards. Hard to believe that every former ASA/Comair pilot is lying.
 
DDaypaysoff,


First off, I am not furloughed. I do fight for our furloughs and hope they get back soon. Second, I don't think CAL is in better shape than Delta, even though it may reach profitability before we do. CAL has nothing to fall back on except a 1/3 share in Expressjet. That is it. They do not own anything else. Delta can still mortgage some of its assets.

As far as Airtran is concerned, I think we have had our wakeup call. We know they are expanding and we know they are getting new planes--thus helping their expansion. We have been cutting costs for the last two years, losing 16,000 jobs in the process, and trying to get leaner. But, there are things that will help us get back eventually. First is the economy. When it is bad, less people want to travel on business. When it gets better, more do and a lot do like the perks. The fares have begun to raise slightly, which will help. (Even though NW has been blocking some increases--at the same time pressing their labor for major cuts---even when they could have rasied fares? Then that would not help cutting labor expenses, right? HMMM) And, gas prices have still been fairly high. Eventually this IRAQ thing will hopefully get better and even Libya might be allowed to pump out some oil if the U.N. accepts them soon. I remember gas prices in ATL in 1996 at 76 cents a gallon. That is when Delta started to do really well. IF gas prices go down again, it will help everybody. I think Airtran has really turned into a good competitor, and I think we will challenge them. We even added ATL--to Flint to combat them. (We all know they had that Flint market all to themselves.....not anymore darnit!!!)

Bye Bye--General Lee
:cool: :rolleyes: ;)
 
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