Everything is Coming Together for Delta

[titans10]

I only look at it differently because I didn't take the job as a new-hire F/O, but rather as an off-the-street CA with Pay and Hotel and Per Diem while in training. Wouldn't have taken it otherwise.

I also didn't get hired during the holidays, have no clue about the furloughs you're talking about. When I got hired, every Major was hiring, my company was shutting down and putting me out of a job, and while I had interviews lined up at UAL and was working with PR to get a DAL interview, I had to have something to hold me over.

Then 9/11 happened.

Not sure what you're getting at but if you're talking about working at the Regionals as an overall problem, then yes, I guess I'm guilty. Just wouldn't do it for the slave labor wages they pay new-hires.

I was talking about the furloughed mainline pilots that happened around the holidays in 01. Yes you were part of the problem working at the regionals.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

I was talking about the furloughed mainline pilots that happened around the holidays in 01. Yes you were part of the problem working at the regionals.

Just a minute there buddy! The pilot group at PCL fought very hard to get those pilots jobs at PCL, it wasn't the pilots working at the regionals that voted outsourcing by margins of over 60%, it was mainline pilots. There were over 200 NWA guys worked at PCL until they started recalling or simply moved to other gigs (some went to FDX/UPS) besides the point that PCL also furloughed in 01, although for a short period because guess what? The mainline pilot group voted to increase the outsourcing and that is when PCL started getting 2 to 3 airplanes a month, I was a line trainer then and for a good couple of years I did nothing but train NWA guys.

 

[titans10]

Ok buddy. I am just tired of all this anger against mainline pilots for trying to take back flying from contract carriers. I don't remember anyone having sympathy for mainline furloughed pilots that had no vote on outsourcing flying. I could have went to PNcL. I did not want to help lower the bar as you did. Never worked for one never will.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

The bar was lowered by the ones that voted for the outsourcing, not the ones that for one reason or another, sometimes had no choice but to take those crappy jobs created by mainline senior pilots securing their conditions at the expense of eating their young. We are all guilty of not standing strong enough against what continues to happen in this industry, all that nonesense about taking flying back when DAL just ordered a whole bunch of RJ's and beating your chest with that self pedestal that you used to climb on that big horse of yours, and it is nothing but a Trojan horse filled with terms and conditions that are two decades behind where they should be, you are making a LOT less than what your counterparts are making in other first world countries, by accepting those terms, that ridiculous first year pay, accepting a job at a company that decimated the pilots retirements, you are also bearing your fair share of the degradation of this career buddy! We all have our crosses to bare, get over yourself

 

[titans10]

I am over myself. You took a job out of seniority order as a street captain. how did that help the regionals. Whatever helps you justify yourself.

 

[Bringupthebird]

The days of pilots of the industry standing together to raise the bar is gone.

When was that!!?? I don't know how long you've been in the industry, but the bellwether contracts occurred during times of full-throttle expansion by airline clamoring for market share. That hasn't happened in 30 years or so.

Pilots didn't stand up for one another. The cockpits of New York Air and Continental and some Eastern were filled by opportunistic skbs when times turned bad. Sure some were helped out, but many folks when hearing of another pilot's plight just said, "That's a shame, but on a lighter note, I'm upgrading!"

 

[Lear70]

Ok buddy. I am just tired of all this anger against mainline pilots for trying to take back flying from contract carriers. I don't remember anyone having sympathy for mainline furloughed pilots that had no vote on outsourcing flying. I could have went to PNcL. I did not want to help lower the bar as you did. Never worked for one never will.

Everybody has their opinion about it, and you're certainly entitled to yours.

My company had its flying taken by FedEx and they permanently furloughed and shut down, a street CA position at PCL was the best I could find on short notice, then 9/11 screwed us all.

This goes back to Scope EVER being given away. If it hadn't, none of this would be a problem. Additionally, you seem to think I'm arguing that mainline taking back Scope is a bad thing... I'm certainly not saying that, Scope take-back is a good thing, but that's a small percentage of the shutdown of PCL if it happens.

The problem is deliberately shutting down one company because their costs are too high then simply farming the portions of THAT flying that they like to a newer, lower-cost airline. The outsourced flying IS STILL THERE, they're just screwing over people to make it cost mainline less to farm it out.

THAT'S what I'm upset about. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Freight Dog]

The problem is deliberately shutting down one company because their costs are too high then simply farming the portions of THAT flying that they like to a newer, lower-cost airline. The outsourced flying IS STILL THERE, they're just screwing over people to make it cost mainline less to farm it out.

THAT'S what I'm upset about. Hope that makes sense.

The MBA's and bean counters wouldn't be doing their jobs if they weren't exploiting this to squeeze every last dime for the shareholders. Not personal, it's their job, and they're doing it right.

When ALPA and the collective pilot mentality moves to the 21st century, maybe things will improve... but until then... it's just sad to watch.

 

[Lear70]

The MBA's and bean counters wouldn't be doing their jobs if they weren't exploiting this to squeeze every last dime for the shareholders. Not personal, it's their job, and they're doing it right.

That kind of mentality is a large indicator of what is wrong with Corporate America and why the middle class will continue to get squeezed until there's nothing left of this Country but MBA's and bean counters at the top and entitlement people at the bottom.

That approach simply isn't sustainable in the long term. Make take a few more decades for people to figure out, but you can see it clearly from where people's standard of living was 30 years ago and where it is now in the U.S.

When ALPA and the collective pilot mentality moves to the 21st century, maybe things will improve... but until then... it's just sad to watch.

What did you have in mind?

 

[Flyer1015]

Dumb Pilot is precisely correct.

While SOME flying is shifting back to Mainline, by dumping Comair and, if it goes down like that, PCL as well, while shifting the new CRJ-9 deliveries to the lowest bidder, they are artificially LOWERING the bar for the Regionals that people worked VERY hard to raise, while simultaneously hurting a LOT of careers.

That's never a good thing.

They are just lowering it to what a regional was suppose to be in the first place: cheap contract feed. With current Airbus pilots at US Air making 125/hr and up until recently United guys making 137/hr, do you really think it's reasonable to have a 18yr CRJ payrate of 107/hr? Pinnacle outpriced itself out of the regional model. They took the industry standard 12-year pay rung/ladder and raised it to 18. All to benefit the top guys. And the latest rumor is that the new TA limits the FOs to 4 year max at about 35/hr. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who's running the show at 9E and at what seniority level the strings are being pulled.

As another guy posted, I think it's just business. Not a wellfare.

 

[Flyer1015]

Also Lear, based on what you are saying, the Pinnacle pilots need to vote no, otherwise they are hurting the profession for the other regional airline's negotiation power. Correct? By voting no, they are most likely voting themselves out of a job. But it seems for 65%, that is going to happen anyway. Might as well take full pay to the last day.

 

[titans10]

The problem is deliberately shutting down one company because their costs are too high then simply farming the portions of THAT flying that they like to a newer, lower-cost airline. The outsourced flying IS STILL THERE, they're just screwing over people to make it cost mainline less to farm it out.

THAT'S what I'm upset about. Hope that makes sense.[/QUOTE]

No I don't think it is right. However; that is a corp. decision not a pilot decision. I want mainline to fly all of there routes. Don't you want SWA to keep flying all there flights? We shall see what that future holds. This lowering cost is nothing new. It happens in every industry.

 

[WMUSIGPI]

Sad for those guys but mainline taking back flying is a good thing for the future if all professional pilots.

Taking it back yet no need to hire for yet another year while hundreds more at DCI hit the street???? That 35% for hiring is really looking useful

 

[WMUSIGPI]

It's a business, not a welfare system. The reality is regional airlines are outsource providers. Interchangeable at the next contract, sometimes before.

Delta has a good management team right now. They are making pro-active decisions, and it seems the rest of the industry is reacting.

AKA "F U I got mine" Sounds like a yes voter at Continited

 

[WMUSIGPI]

They are just lowering it to what a regional was suppose to be in the first place: cheap contract feed. With current Airbus pilots at US Air making 125/hr and up until recently United guys making 137/hr, do you really think it's reasonable to have a 18yr CRJ payrate of 107/hr? Pinnacle outpriced itself out of the regional model. They took the industry standard 12-year pay rung/ladder and raised it to 18. All to benefit the top guys. And the latest rumor is that the new TA limits the FOs to 4 year max at about 35/hr. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who's running the show at 9E and at what seniority level the strings are being pulled.

As another guy posted, I think it's just business. Not a wellfare.

Yes, last I looked it was effectively the same job, just a few less people in the cabin, so yes it should pay just a little less. Why should that 900 captain subsidise the mainline pilots' pay?

 

[Lear70]

No I don't think it is right. However; that is a corp. decision not a pilot decision. I want mainline to fly all of there routes. Don't you want SWA to keep flying all there flights? We shall see what that future holds. This lowering cost is nothing new. It happens in every industry.

You're mixing apples and oranges.

Southwest doesn't have contract feed because it doesn't fit their business model to need it. They recently put out a piece from management about how Revenue decides what cities to serve and how much, and it's a complicated puzzle about the mix of originating and thru-traffic, since Southwest hops point-to-point inside the U.S.

The Legacy carriers don't do that, thus there IS no revenue from thru-passengers at the small outstation airports. So either it can be supported with O&D traffic, or it can't, with either all mainline flights, a mix, or just RJ's. It's a simple math equation.

So if you want Mainline to "Take it ALL back", that would mean NO RJ's, which would mean about 25-35% of your out-stations like Duluth, Bozeman, Wichita, etc, would lose ALL your traffic, since it wouldn't be supported by the small amount of O&D traffic and Mainline would have to drop the route entirely as people flocked to the OTHER carriers with lower costs still flying RJ's. What would that do to the overall revenue generation for your airline? to lose all that traffic?

What you want isn't really possible now that Pandora's box is opened. It would take EVERY Legacy carrier stopping their RJ feed so that no carrier could undercut another in price, the service to those small cities would die off, their citizens and governments would scream bloody murder, and something would be done to stimulate new low-cost service to those cities from another up-start carrier, highly-subsidized like many of those cities already are, and thus it repeats itself.

The citizens of this country have convinced the Federal Government that they are ENTITLED to low-cost air service to their itty bitty little podunk towns, and you're not going to change that.

So, in short, you can't "Have it all" at Mainline. What IS possible is to keep the large jets that are the size of the smaller DC-9's of the past on property, but all these airlines keep selling out 90 seat Scope to get rid of the 50-seaters that were going away anyway because of cost, and management is laughing all the way to the bank.

If you kept the 90+ seaters at Mainline and limited the Regionals to 89 seats or less (certified max configuration, not 90 reduced to 86 with a Business Class like NWA and then DAL pulled), you'd reduce the size of the Regionals by likely 40-50% and claim that flying for your own and do it in a way that creates a path for the Regional guys to flow into. This way, there's VERY little upward progression for the PCL people available as DCI flying is SHRINKING, at least for another year, before hiring starts back up again for incoming 717's as growth planes.

However, it's going to come at a cost, and the senior pilots in control of the union at the Legacies aren't interested in that. The senior continue to eat the junior... now THAT'S something you can be angry about and, from your position, get yourself into a position to change. You can't change the lower end of the spectrum without controlling it from the top.

 

[Andy]

Taking it back yet no need to hire for yet another year while hundreds more at DCI hit the street???? That 35% for hiring is really looking useful

If you look at Delta's last quarterly report, you'll see that combined mainline/regional ASMs shrunk by 2% year over year. After 9/11 until the last year or so, ASM shrinkage was solely on the mainline side of the house, while regional flying grew. While both mainline and regional ASMs shrunk, the greater percentage of shrinkage (8% vs 1%) was on the regional side of the house.
Welcome to the world that mainline pilots have dealt with since 9/11.

What is it that you'd like to see happen? 5% mainline shrinkage with 8% regional growth? Because that's what you're implying. That's not possible under DALPA's current contract.

To give you a full picture, look at AMR and UCH's last quarterly reports.
AMR mainline ASMs declined 2.5%. Regional ASMs declined .8%.
UCH mainline ASMs shrunk 1.4%. Regional ASMs shrunk 1.1%


The current trend among the three largest airlines is to reduce ASMs. At the same time, they're replacing older equipment with new aircraft that have more seats. Both trends reduce block hours.
On the mainline side of the house, the block hour reductions are starting to be offset by retirements. That isn't happening on the regional side.

 

[General Lee]

Taking it back yet no need to hire for yet another year while hundreds more at DCI hit the street???? That 35% for hiring is really looking useful

First of all, BK is a horrible thing, for almost everyone except BK attorneys. It cuts wages, benefits, and allows changes that normally wouldn't happen between parties with contracts. We saw it on both the DL and NWA side, and it wasn't fun. Scope was changed too, allowing MORE RJs. Now it seems reversed. The fortunate few who got new upgrades or faster upgrades now will unfortunately feel it on the other side.

Also, 2013 is probably awash with hiring, but not all PNCL pilots will leave at once. Hopefully the departures will somewhat coincide, and hopefully the other legacies will also start major hiring too.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[lakemead1]

First of all, BK is a horrible thing, for almost everyone except BK attorneys. It cuts wages, benefits, and allows changes that normally wouldn't happen between parties with contracts. We saw it on both the DL and NWA side, and it wasn't fun. Scope was changed too, allowing MORE RJs. Now it seems reversed. The fortunate few who got new upgrades or faster upgrades now will unfortunately feel it on the other side.

Also, 2013 is probably awash with hiring, but not all PNCL pilots will leave at once. Hopefully the departures will somewhat coincide, and hopefully the other legacies will also start major hiring too.


Bye Bye---General Lee

General- Do u think Delta will hire in 2013 in spite of what was said about no hiring in 2013?

 

[enuffalready]

General- Do u think Delta will hire in 2013 in spite of what was said about no hiring in 2013?

he doesn't know any more than you.