DELTA'S SCOPE RELIEF AND THE 717's?

[Golden Falcon]

And for every regional jet that gets "scoped out" 5 of those crews flow to mainline....

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

There will be plenty of movement and hiring due to the TA, and 148 50 seat RJs retired.


Bye Bye---General Lee

Gotta debate you on this fact General.....

Highly doubtful this will trigger hiring....too many givebacks in "flexibility" for our workrules counters the whole argument.

 

[180ToTheMarker]

That number is not very representative. Yes, 44% of airframes but what percentage of seats? Or seat miles. Not that I'm arguing for more RJs just pointing out the error of your calculations.

44% of cockpit seats.

 

[Hamfighter]

I spoke to Scrappy one-on-one after the meeting yesterday (silly nickname, but I feel the most articulate, well-spoken and likable of the group). I said, "If the success of Delta is based on having these 70+ seat RJ's..."
He finished my sentence: "then why don't we fly them?"
He said they actually presented that to management on this TA, but that it it just not economically feasible for us to fly anything smaller than 88 seats because it would cost to much for Delta pilots, fa's and mechanics.
Again, don't like it, but it makes sense.

 

[RJ Bum]

It is unacceptable. While in no way softening on the scope stance, it did make sense how Scrappy explained it at the meeting yesterday. Delta has these long leases on the 50's that they can't terminate, but they can convert to 70s or 90s and it costs to much to just park them until the leases expire.

Sounds like a management problem. Just sayin...

 

[General Lee]

I spoke to Scrappy one-on-one after the meeting yesterday (silly nickname, but I feel the most articulate, well-spoken and likable of the group). I said, "If the success of Delta is based on having these 70+ seat RJ's..."
He finished my sentence: "then why don't we fly them?"
He said they actually presented that to management on this TA, but that it it just not economically feasible for us to fly anything smaller than 88 seats because it would cost to much for Delta pilots, fa's and mechanics.
Again, don't like it, but it makes sense.

Neither do I, but I can recognize, along with you and some others, that this is a business, and the regionals are getting squeezed to produce more for less compensation. Colgan had to give up their big props because United wanted it done for less. Instead, cap the number and include a ratio that gives mainline the edge.

Bill Lumberg,

The productivity gains via the reserve rules have a Q&A on the Dalpa website that answers some of the supposed "myths" about those new rules. There are two very busy months of the year, July and August, and those two months are what Delta staffs for. The rest of the year DL is over staffed. Until capacity is brought back up, the airline will continue to be so. Hopefully a couple hundred guys will take the early outs, which will help a bit.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[waveflyer]

What's so magical about 88 seats??

It doesn't make sense until they show the numbers-

And again- do you guys realize you're selling out regional pilots, whipsawing them against each other to keep wages artificially low, stealing any leverage they may ever have- giving them the "choice" of quit your career or show up and chase the mainline carrot for less?

 

[waveflyer]

Guess what?
I also saw an NBC report on how American made just a few hundred dollars per perfectly executed 767 flight.

No RJ has ever made a profit.

Didn't you guys see how quickly Independence burned through cash with the economics of the RJ.
The -900 is better, but not that much-

It's the network that makes the money. It's all of it in total. The miles. The credit card deals. Funneling passengers onto larger jets that wouldn't make the trip at all if that feed were lost. Delta's business plan does not include making a profit on every single leg flown. It's about working it all to make a profit on the entire very powerful network.

Again, if it's a deal breaker for mainline pilots to fly an aircraft that big- DALPA ought to say no.

Imagine how united has managed to survive without letting go of -900's yet.

If you do this DALPA, you'll make it very hard for them and AA to keep up their scope fight.

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

I spoke to Scrappy one-on-one after the meeting yesterday (silly nickname, but I feel the most articulate, well-spoken and likable of the group). I said, "If the success of Delta is based on having these 70+ seat RJ's..."
He finished my sentence: "then why don't we fly them?"
He said they actually presented that to management on this TA, but that it it just not economically feasible for us to fly anything smaller than 88 seats because it would cost to much for Delta pilots, fa's and mechanics.
Again, don't like it, but it makes sense.

Joe Kolshak was standing in my cockpit drowning us with his wisdom right after we did TA 46 and the RJ rates appeared on our payscales. So I asked, "when are the big RJs coming to mainline Joe?".....He said "I know this is emotional and yes you sure did come down on your costs but do you know what a Flight Attendant makes at Comair, or a mechanic at ASA?....much cheaper than Mainline.....you have to think economically, it's not just your costs..."

Scrappy, (like the guy) sounds like he's stealing that talking point from the spinmaster himself.......our NC needs to stop defending the status quo and start being our agents for change.

 

[Mookie]

44% of cockpit seats.

which is by far the most germane fact to this whole argument. good luck DAL dudes.

mookie

 

[labatt]

which is by far the most germane fact to this whole argument. good luck DAL dudes.

mookie

The G. Damn Germans had nothing to do with it!

 

[Dan Roman]

The G. Damn Germans had nothing to do with it!

You're probably willing to let them off the hook for bombing Pearl Harbor too, aren't you?

 

[waveflyer]

What's so magical about 88 seats??

Seriously, what's so magical about 88 seats? Give me the numbers General.
The -900 can carry 84 w/o the first class.

It's pretty generous to outsource them instead of mainline.

 

[waveflyer]

which is by far the most germane fact to this whole argument. good luck DAL dudes.

mookie

No, jokes aside, it's not.

The most German fact of this whole TA is that the scope fight industry wide is happening on the large RJ side. AA is in BK and is asking the judge for almost 90 seats outsourced- UNiCal is fighting like crazy on both the 70 and 90 seat fronts.

Sign this TA and the most powerful, unified, pilot union in the world just made -900's industry standard.

You guys deserve a raise. A bigger one than this. But don't let money sidetrack the damage that outsourcing has done. 50's are not viable at these fuel prices. And they're old. They're gone. Mgmt is simply trying to keep the whipsaw market intact to divide us more effectively.

 

[General Lee]

No, jokes aside, it's not.

The most German fact of this whole TA is that the scope fight industry wide is happening on the large RJ side. AA is in BK and is asking the judge for almost 90 seats outsourced- UNiCal is fighting like crazy on both the 70 and 90 seat fronts.

Sign this TA and the most powerful, unified, pilot union in the world just made -900's industry standard.

You guys deserve a raise. A bigger one than this. But don't let money sidetrack the damage that outsourcing has done. 50's are not viable at these fuel prices. And they're old. They're gone. Mgmt is simply trying to keep the whipsaw market intact to divide us more effectively.

There are no 90 seat RJs. The plane may hold that much if there wasn't a first class option, but UAL and DL have that. Southwest 737-800s are filled to the max with seats, but not every airline has that, or wants that.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[waveflyer]

There are no 90 seat RJs. The plane may hold that much if there wasn't a first class option, but UAL and DL have that. Southwest 737-800s are filled to the max with seats, but not every airline has that, or wants that.


Bye Bye---General Lee

That has nothing to do with my post.
Do UniCal or AA fly anything bigger than a -700?
That's the point.
You do this, and not only FO you lose a great opportunity to get an RJ type at mainline, you make it much harder on your peers to hold the line on large RJ scope.

But I'm sure any yes voter does have to distract and muddy the water to justify it.

 

[Dizel8]

You're probably willing to let them off the hook for bombing Pearl Harbor too, aren't you?

The Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

 

[Diesel-9]

Article
Delta Deal Could Change The Equation On Scope
By Andrew Compart [email protected]
Source: AWIN First
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June 07, 2012
Delta Air Lines’ tentative collective bargaining agreement with its pilots union is worded to ensure that the carrier will have to cut its regional airline services if it reduces domestic mainline services, under a formula that could spread to union contracts at other carriers.

The tentative deal also could set other precedents. For example, the contract includes language to automatically ensure that Delta pilots retain an “appropriate percentage” of the flying in any new joint-venture agreement—an issue that the Delta Master Executive Council for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) is referring to as “big scope” because it deals with international widebody flying, rather than “small scope” regional aircraft operations.

On “small scope” issues, some union contracts used to include limits on how much mainline operations could be cut, and sometimes those limits were not linked to the size of the regional operations. These airlines, however, usually negotiated elimination or loosening of these restrictions during Chapter 11 restructuring.

The proposed deal with Delta establishes a ratio between domestic mainline and regional flying block hours that Delta must maintain. The national ALPA office says some other agreements also include ratios—based on block hours or hulls—but adds that the Delta deal is “unique” because the ratio would change if Delta revises the composition of its regional fleet to include larger aircraft. The Delta ALPA unit says it initiated the ratio concept.

The agreement lets Delta add 70 more 76-seat aircraft to its regional fleet, if it adds 88 mainline narrowbody aircraft and cuts its 50-seat fleet by more than 200 aircraft. But as Delta adds more 76-seat aircraft, the minimum ratio rises.

For example, when Delta adds its first 76-seat aircraft, the ratio starts out as a requirement for Delta to provide 1.1 block hours of flying for every hour of block flying outsourced to Delta Connection carriers. But the ratio increases for every 10 additional 76-seaters that Delta adds to Delta Connection service, ending at a mandate for 1.56 hours of mainline block hours for every hour at Delta Connection if Delta adds at least 61 new 76-seaters to regional carrier operations. Once a new ratio is established, Delta cannot reduce it under most circumstances.

That guarantees mainline pilots at least 60.9% of the domestic block hours if Delta adds 61-70 of the 76-seaters, the Delta ALPA leadership says.

That means—unlike the big shift that U.S. airlines implemented during and after the recession in the early 2000s—Delta would not be able to move domestic services from mainline to regional. That has meaning, Delta union spokesman Buzz Hazzard says, because it would ensure “fairness through proportionality” if Delta were to downsize, and because “how we get paid and how we get employed is block hours.”

The contract includes a provision that allows Delta to go lower than the ratio for a “circumstance over which the company does not have control.” But the contract explicitly states that those allowable circumstances do not include the price of fuel or aircraft, the state of the economy, the company’s financial state or “the relative profitability or unprofitability of the company’s then-current operations.”

On the “big scope” issue, Delta and the union will try to reach individually tailored production accords on the pilot share of flying in any future joint venture (JV), such as the one Delta already has with Air France-KLM and Alitalia for sharing revenue and coordinating schedules across the Atlantic. But if management and the union cannot reach consensus on any particular joint venture, Delta’s share of revenue block hours flown will be at least 75% of the airline’s share of revenue.

“This makes sure that Delta has ‘skin in the game,’ that Delta must be an active operator in the JV, and the block hours it operates must be proportional to the revenue it derives from the JV,” says a union official.

In another notable provision, the tentative contract would require Delta to remove six seats from the 76-seat aircraft being operated by its regional partners if the carrier furloughs any mainline pilots currently on the seniority list—and forbid the carrier from reinstalling the seats until all the furloughed pilots have been offered recall. There are no “force majeure” provisions that would let Delta change this requirement, ALPA says.

Delta is declining comment on the tentative deal. The pilots union members will vote on the tentative agreement later this month.

 

[jynxyjericho]

44% of cockpit seats.

LOL, and there you have it guys, the heart of the matter. You sir, have won the thread.

After this TA is approved, and mainline pilots give their blessing on more, larger RJ's at the regional level, I hope the hate directed at regionals can finally abate.

 

[Dan Roman]

The Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

You didn't know?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI