Heavy Set,
Thanks for the reply and yes, free speech for everyone. That includes the General, Heavy Set and even Surplus1.
Heavy Set said:
My impression is that the General and other Delta pilots don't want to necessarily "control" the ASA/Comair careers - they just want to PROTECT their own careers and ensure that the furloughees are back flying as soon as possible. That's all.
OK, I'll rephrase it. The Delta pilots just want to protect their own careers. The method they have chosen is by attempting to control the careers of ASA/Comair pilots, who wish to control their own careers. I'm sorry but I can't support their method.
As far as the furloughees go I'm all for getting them back as soon as possible.
Yes, General Lee can be overly sarcastic and times, but he frequently focuses on the furloughee situation - that is not a bad thing. Comair and ASA continue to grow and add to their route structure (e.g, Salt Lake and Dallas) while Delta furloughs more mainline pilots - shouldn't the General and others be concerned about the situation? Do they have a right to express their opinions on an open forum? Yes.
General Lee's sarcasm does not bother me. His frequent stretching of the truth, to the breaking point, does. His focus on the plight of the furloughed and their prompt return is admirable and is not a bad thing. The General and his fellow pilots
should be concerned about the furloughs, they should
not imply that we are the cause or that we are preventing their return. That is false and yes, they are making that assertion.
The continued growth of Comair and ASA have nothing to do with the furlough of Delta pilots.
They are not being furloughed because we are growing. Many more would be furloughed if we did not exist and the Company (Delta) would be much worse off if we were not doing what Delta bought us to do. It would not be better for General Lee's associates if we were not growing. It would be far worse. That is not just my opinion, it is substantiated by the facts.
Additionally, General Lee claims, over and over again, that Delta pilots are not being hired at Comair because Comair pilots are preventing that from happening. That is false. Delta pilots are not being hired at Comair because they do not wish to resign their Delta seniority and Comair requires its new pilots to do so.
General Lee is angry because the Comair MEC did not agree to attempt to force Comair management to change its hiring policy on behalf of Delta pilots. It is true that Comair MEC would not do that. In my opinion, the Comair MEC was correct. Whether or not you care, I'll tell you and him again, just like he tells me his version.
The Delta MEC did not
ask the Comair MEC for its assistance. What it actually did was orchestrate a political ploy, proffer an "offer" on which it could not deliver, and soured the pot with threats, made before the fact, of what it would do if we did not comply with its demands. If they wanted us to say no (I believe they did), they could not have done a better job of ensuring it. The threats were rejected and properly so.
General Lee and his supporters choose conveniently to focus on the decision of the Comair MEC, which he and they do not like. He is a willing participant in the Delta MEC's propaganda campaign against Comair pilots, and regurgitates the threats on an almost daily basis. He chooses also to ignore the actions of his own MEC which have been decidely unfavorable to Comair pilots, not once but for years. He's perfectly happy with that because it suits him and his peers. Well, it does not suit me and my peers and I am perfectly unhappy with those actions by the DMEC. The General has no fear of stating how he feels and no doubt you've noticed, neither do I.
What exactly do you expect, Heavy Set? It sounds like you believe that we should remain silent and comply with whatever the Delta MEC wants, not matter how adversely it may affect us while tacitly accepting whatever they chose to say. I am not willing to do that.
You ask me " Do they have a right to express their opinions on an open forum?" Then you answer yourself by saying "Yes." I agree with you. Now I ask you the same question. Do we have a right to express our opinions in an open forum? I give you the same answer: YES. Whether or not my opinions agree with those of General Lee, the answer remains the same. We each have the right to express our opinions and that is what we are doing.
What if your own situation mirrored General Lee's situation. Let's say that Chit-Talk and Mesa started to encroach on your system because of their much lower operating cost structures - and Comair/ASA pilots were furloughed with no clear timetable for their return... How would you feel? How did you feel when Chit-Talk took over Orlando? I guess you weren't upset in the slightest... I suppose there is zero ill-will between the two pilot groups. If you were furloughed, you would likely be happy that someone like the General is defending you and attempting to communicate the problem to other pilots.
You ask some interesting questions but the scenarios you pose are substantially different, which you do not appear to recognize. Perhaps that is because you are unfamiliar, but I rather suspect it is because you are of the same basic mindset as the typical Delta pilot. In my view, that mindset is flawed.
Chitauqua
is already encroaching on our system. So are two other airlines, ACA and SKYW. CHQ operates the same class of equipment that we do. So do the other two. There is no ill-will between the CMR pilot group and those 3 groups. At present, we are not being furloughed as a result. If we were being furloughed, I believe there would still be no ill-will on the part of Comair pilots. Does that mean we are "happy" about the encroachment or we "like it"? No, it does not. We are not happy that CHQ "tookover" MCO and we are not happy that ACA is based in CVG. We wish Delta had also decided to buy SKYW (before it affiliated with UAL).
However, we are very much aware that the pilots of those airlines are NOT responsible for what Delta (the Company) is doing to us. Therefore, there is NO reason to harbor ill-will against them. Can you understand that?
Those 3 airlines, CHQ, ACA and SKYW are not subcontractors of Comair or ASA. They are subcontractors of Delta. Only a few years ago, CMR and ASA were also subcontractors. The Comair pilots' CBA (I don't know about ASA) does not permit subcontracting and Comair is not doing any subcontracting. Delta is doing the subcontracting. If the Delta pilots are concerned, then why are they picking on CMR and ASA who are NOT subcontracting? Why didn't they act to prevent subcontracting in the past? Why aren't they attempting to prevent it now?
Why do they object to the subsidiaries of CMR & ASA but do not object to the subsidiary "Song"? Simple isn't it? They are doing the flying at song and they are not doing the flying at CMR/ASA. So it's not really subsidiaries that they are against. What they want is our flying. If they could get that flying, do you think they are at all worried about what would happen to us? The answer is NO. Why then are we expected to worry about them?
Comair and ASA are not encroaching on the Delta system. We are each an integral part of that system. We know that, the Company knows that and the industry knows that. The Delta pilots are the only one's that don't seem to be in the know. The Company isn't about to enlighten them. Why should it? They have given the Company a lever that it did not previously have. Management would have been fools not to take it.
The Delta pilots may not like having us as subsidiaries of Delta, but again, they did nothing to prevent it. In fact they did everything to create it and to keep it so. If the Delta pilots did not want 3 airlines under the same roof at Delta, then they should not have specifically excluded us from the Merger clause of their PWA.
WE did not do that, THEY did. When the Company bought our airlines, we both asked the union to implement its merger policy. We understood that the union could not force Delta to merge the corporations. We also understand that the Delta pilots intentionally and deliberately prevented the union from making any attempt to do so. Why? According to them, three reasons 1) they did not wish to waste their negotiating capital, 2) they did not consider us to be suitable for integration with them and, 3) they did not wish to "risk" compliance with the union's merger policy. As the old fashioned saying goes, "you made your bed now lie in it."
Remember, if you don't like the message, you don't have to get on this forum - you can stick to the Regionals forum. The General might be sarcastic, but he is often more logical and vehement than most people on these boards.... Most of his messages revolve around the furloughees - so that people don't forget about them...
My friend, that's a two-way street. If you or anyone else doesn't like my messages, you don't have to read them either. I agree that the General is vehement but when it comes to these issues the logic part escapes me.
Surplus 1, if I were you, I would be less concerned about what the Delta pilots are doing and more concerned about the Chit-Talk pilots - watch your back. Now YOU can relate to how the Delta pilots feel. Cheers
Heavy Set, I learned a long time ago to watch my six very carefully. What's new to me is the idea that my wing-men are even more likely to lob a missile up my rear. Now I have to watch them both. Does that help YOU relate to how Comair pilots feel? It's one thing to be burned by the "enemy" but this Blue-on-Blue sucks.
Regards,
