EX Delta CFO Fights to keep her travel benifits in court

[AA717driver]

I agree they are all crooked. But the Gop seems to have a special place in its heart for fcuking over the working man/woman, particularly airline unions. How can you not see that? Pilots are supposed to be good at recognizing the big picture and all that..

You should have stopped after the first sentence. The rest of the quote just assures me that the system will continue to operate as usual. Corruption is corrruption regardless of which side of the aisle they are on. Excusing one party or the other because some of their policies are more to your liking is sheer hypocrisy.

Keep on cheering for "your" team. They surely occupy the moral high ground... TC

 

[Ty Webb]

I agree they are all crooked. But the Gop seems to have a special place in its heart for fcuking over the working man/woman, particularly airline unions.

Two words for you, Green:

Grow Up.

I used to fly a corporate jet for a Democratic "rainmaker" and I can assure you that the other side of the aisle is just a putrid. If you think otherwise, you are only deluding yourself.

Yeah, John Kerry would have really cared for the plight of the professional pilot . . . . . rrrrrrrrright .

 

[General Lee]

By RUSSELL GRANTHAM , MATT KEMPNER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/06/05 M. Michele Burns, the Atlanta executive who landed deals allowing her to parachute from Delta Air Lines and Mirant Corp. with millions of dollars, is fighting to keep her loftiest perk: free flights for life aboard Delta.
The airline, which is struggling to stay airborne while in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, wants to cut off first-class flight privileges for its former financial chief and her family.

​

A Delta spokesman said M. Michele Burns was the only former executive challenging the decision to cut off flight perks.

• In court papers filed last week, Burns argued that Delta can't cancel the flight privileges — awarded to her when she left the airline in April 2004 — under federal bankruptcy code. She also said the carrier would lose more than it gained from the move.
  Delta will "incur few or no actual costs or expenses ... because there generally are empty seats on the debtor's aircraft," Burns said in the filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
  Burns is no stranger to flaps over executive pay and perks.
  In 2002, while at Delta, she helped the airline during its creation of controversial bankruptcy-proof pension trusts for about three dozen executives. That provided her with at least $1 million in a personal pension trust beyond the reach of creditors.
  Around the same time, Burns also was among a long list of Delta executives who were paid hefty bonuses while the airline was losing money, cutting jobs and appealing for federal aid. That year, she was awarded a bonus of $846,000, on top of her $560,000 salary.
  Despite those incentives, Burns and other Delta executives left the company in droves. Her next stop was Mirant, the bankrupt energy trader, where she became chief financial officer.
  Now she's finishing a 20-month stint with Mirant, flush with at least $8.2 million in severance pay, bonuses and other payments from the company as it emerges from its own Chapter 11 case.
  Efforts to reach Burns for comment Monday were unsuccessful.
  Delta spokesman John Kennedy said the airline asked the bankruptcy court to relieve it of fulfilling all individual compensation agreements with former senior executives. He said that while many executives had such agreements, he was unsure of how many there were or whether others included flight privileges.
  "Given the severity of our financial situation and the sacrifices that Delta's active and retired people are making, the company believes it's right and appropriate," Kennedy said Monday.
  "We've always said that our restructuring would not be painless and that all Delta stakeholders would need to participate."
  Kennedy said Burns was the only former executive to challenge the cutoff.
  Burns received the unlimited rights to Delta's generally most expensive seats on a so-called positive space basis, meaning they were reserved as though she and her family were paying passengers. The benefit was part of an agreement for her to provide occasional consulting services for the airline until May 2009.
  Delta declined to comment on whether Burns did any consulting.
  Long-tenured retirees are allowed to fly free on the carrier. But Burns left Delta after only five years with the company and wouldn't normally qualify for such privileges, much less rights that gave her the higher priority on seating.
  Delta promised the flights to Burns, her spouse or domestic partner and their children as long as she lives and doesn't use them for business purposes.
  Stanley Barczak, who co-authored an unsuccessful shareholder proposal earlier this year that called for Delta to renegotiate compensation for former executives who tapped the pension trusts, said he was not surprised by the current tussle over Burns' free-flying perk.
  He noted that starting next year, active Delta employees would be charged a $50 annual fee to use their personal flight privileges.
  "Allowing her to fly free while everybody else is paying would add insult to injury after her time with the company," said Barczak, a Delta baggage handler from Richwood, Ky., who was recently furloughed after 27 years with the company.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Green]

Two words for you, Green:

Grow Up.

I used to fly a corporate jet for a Democratic "rainmaker" and I can assure you that the other side of the aisle is just a putrid. If you think otherwise, you are only deluding yourself.

Yeah, John Kerry would have really cared for the plight of the professional pilot . . . . . rrrrrrrrright .

Ok ty. No matter how impressed the chick who cleans your condo in Mexico is with your fancy uniform, you're just a working stiff. The current administration does not have your best interests at heart. There is no way around that. You are just a union monkey.

The dems may be just as "putrid" but their base consists mostly of hourly workers so, like it or not, if they want to get re-elected they have to represent us union types.

You hardcore bushies always like to point at Clinton stopping the AA strike as evidence that Dems are out to get Airline Pilots as well. If that was the worst thing the Gop had ever done to Alpa pilots we'd all be making 200k+ with 7 figure pensions to look forward to.

The smart Bush, the stupid Bush, and Reagan all made it abundantly clear that they do not think aviation professionals should make six figures. If you choose to vote for them because you think school children should be taught that Adam and Eve used to plow Eden with the help of a dinasour then that's your perogative. But don't try and argue that Bush cares about the working guy's career as much as the Dems.

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

Put her in the back of my rj on that 3hr MCO/TUL flight I did yesterday, 14B right next to the lav door, which is in serious need of service.....

 

[atlcrashpad]

She worked a deal with Leo Millions and now DAL wants to cut it? WTF? Just because it was a BS, behind closed doors, sweetheart, golden parachute package doesn't mean she didn't deserve it. Come on, the company wasn't loosing that much.... opps it was.. "Off with her head".

Those Sweet Exec pass privledges are Possitive Space First Class. They would bump a GM, PM or any other paying passenger looking for his/her deserved upgrade.

 

[Laughing_Jakal]

You're not credible Green...

I had a rant, that I lost....You use the term "bushie" (which should be capitalized, even as a derogatory) ...and are a self described Green.......

Suffice it to say that even if I never got another raise, and my retirement was completely cashiered, I'd be better off if a conservative agenda was embraced by the country......Some things are more important than monetary considerations..though I believe I would be better off economically.

Your political posts are obnoxious, go back to smoking your dope.

 

[Ty Webb]

The dems may be just as "putrid" but their base consists mostly of hourly workers so, like it or not, if they want to get re-elected they have to represent us union types.

No, they only have to make appearances and mouth empty platitudes. Apparently, it works on you.

The smart Bush, the stupid Bush, and Reagan all made it abundantly clear that they do not think aviation professionals should make six figures.

No, they made it clear that they were going to let the market forces act, and let the chips fall where they may. The blame rests at the feet of ALPA, in my opinion. How Duane's tenure can be seen as anything less than a complete failure is beyond me.

If you choose to vote for them because you think school children should be taught that Adam and Eve used to plow Eden with the help of a dinasour then that's your perogative.

Someone must have stolen your brain and replaced it with manure, if you think that is what Conservative values are, and I'll bet the thief is Al Franken. . .

Getting your political "knowlege" from a washed-up SNL comedy writer is like getting your religion from a wasged-up science fiction writer (Scientology, anyone?).

Sure, far better to vote for leaders who think that school is a place to force other people's agendas and misguided notions on my children . . . . leaders who think they they are entitled to a bigger hunk of my paycheck because they know how it should be spent, and who promote "feel-good" programs and policies to make non-working and undereducated people feel entitled to things they refuse to earn . . . . Oh, yeah, boy, that's the kind of leadership we need.

Heather and her two Mommies will be very happy with you and your ilk, Green, and so would Bin Laden, Al Queda, and every three-time felon behind bars right now.

But don't try and argue that Bush cares about the working guy's career as much as the Dems.

The point you seem to be missing, Greeno, is that neither of them caree, but you are being suckered into thinking that one of them does . . . and even voting based upon that misguided notion.

 

[Green]

If you choose to vote for them because you think school children should be taught that Adam and Eve used to plow Eden with the help of a dinasour then that's your perogative.
"Someone must have stolen your brain and replaced it with manure, if you think that is what Conservative values are, and I'll bet the thief is Al Franken. . ."


Ty it doesn't come from Al Franken. Funny that you're a Bush cheerleader yet don't seem to know what he stands for. He publicly aired his support for the mental garbage known as Intelligent Design. Here is an example of the latest scientific breakthrough.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1489520,00.html

 

[Ty Webb]

Green Weenie:

I didn't say I was a Bush cheerleader, you did.

Part of your problem is that you fail to understand that Bush didn't WIN the election, the Dems LOST it, mainly by putting forth such an obviously poor choice of a candidate- a taxaholic elitist from Mass who had nothing to show for 25 years in Congress, except for an opinionated, boorish pig of a wife.

If that was the best the Dems could do, then they deserved to lose, and for the past two years, it's been nothing but hysterical belly-aching from sore-losers like yourself, and it's pretty tiresome.

Thread Hijack over . . . and out.