Heyas F4H,
Personally, DOH with a 5 year fence/no bump-no flush sounds pretty good to me. I'm positive that after the fence comes down, the demographics for each side would be remarkably similar
Well, I'm glad that "personally" works out for you. The demographics under DOH and 5 years would be totally skewed in NW favor. Nu, consider this for a moment: Delta has 210 pilots that were hired in 1981 or
before. That means #211 was hired in sept. 1985. The NW counterpart hired in sept. 1985 is #1217---that's over 1000 numbers JUNIOR on a seniority list that's 30% smaller than Delta's. The facts are these: #211 at DL is a very senior 767-400ER international capt., in staight seniority order. (stovepipe) His NW DOH counterpart #1217 is a mid-seniority domestic A-320 capt. (by stovepipe). Under DOH, #211 at DL would go to #1426!--that is, from 2.8% on the list to 11.3%, while his NW counterpart would go from
23.5% to that same 11.3%. A
loss of
8.5% for one, a
gain of
12.2% for the other.
Way more skewed than
anything Delta ever considered proposing. As for demographics, assuming DL's 210 1981 or prior hires are roughly equivalent to yours in terms of age, then in 5-7 years DL sept 85 hires would have expected to be at the very top of their list. Under DOH, they would be nowhere near the top. In 5 years they would have, at least, all the NW pilots (and ONLY NW pilots) hired between feb. 1981 and aug. 1985 in front of them (805 pilots, with similar demographics)--tell me about quashing a pilot group's expectations! The problem is, the "junior" delta pilots are
already flying the 1100 widebody capt positions at DL (#1100 at DL a sept. 1987 hire) It is a fact, it is indisputable, it is not an "expectation". Expectations are different than present facts. Expectations, like predictions, are notoriously difficult--especially about the future.
Second, any aircraft swaps during this period will CERTAINLY produce secondary arbitrations as to what is and what isn't a "replacement aircraft". That's the problem fences bring. Ask any red/green guy the amount of money, in assessments, it's cost them over the years, and it will make the assessmenets we're paying now look like chump change. If you DAL guys don't think this is a big deal, let me tell you, we've got Red guys who have experience and MULTIPLE successes in arbitrating what is a replacement aircraft. If I can point to a 330 and say "that's a DC-10 replacement" and make it stick, then a 717 for a DC-9 is a no-brainer.
Well, I certainly would not dispute that 717s would be repacements for the -9, assuming they came on the property concurrent with a dc-9 draw-down, or within a reasonable amount of time after the 9s were gone. As for 777s, there are scores of orders, options, rolling options, etc. It would be difficult at best for NW to try to claim airplanes that DL already had on the order and option books. The A-330 replacing DC-10s was a no-brainer, -now whether ANY of the green book guys should have been allowed to fly it? --well you (red book) guys answered that.
