NWA Cargo (Delta) Scope? whoops.

[General Lee]

You guys are way off. Try over 300 Pilot Widebody jobs are being outsourced. General once again you don't know what you are talking about we have been doing plenty of Asia Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Flying with the Pax birds and freighters. We fly multiple trips to AMS and Germany, Kuwait, Spain, Afghanistan etc. etc. both Pax and Freight as well as Charter.

I still can't figure out how you guys think that a 777 should pay the same as a 747 when a 747 can carry 125 more people and or cargo and outweighs it by over 120,000 pounds. All those extra people and not a dollar of that revenue because of pride. It is time to swallow the pride and quit letting our scope get pissed on.

No, you are full of BS. That's great that you have the occasional charter here and there, but as the arbitrators stated, your 742 jobs were going away anyway. The MAJORITY of your 742 flights were from ANC to the Pacific Rim, and YOU KNOW IT. I saw recently a NWA 744 in Frankfurt Hahn, probably a MAC charter. Well, that 744 is still going to be around (although 5 will be parked for the Fall/Winter)---and Delta will still use some of those 744s to REPLACE the 742s (pax versions) on those MAC contracts. And guess what cheesecake? The Arbitrators decided the pay rates. The extra costs of maintaining those old 742s was just too much---for even a super profitable company like UPS too. But hey, you want them to stick around even if they are expensive.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

I am starting to see why 68% of all DL flying is done by connection, and this guy says he is tough on scope LOL

Was that before or after 100 of the 50 seaters were parked? We need more of them to be parked too. Also, what you and others here find hard to understand is that this particular agreement to fly freight over the North Atlantic did not cover any of our current 742 cargo flying, nor did it use any of our cargo slots at NRT. Ah forget it, this is way over your head....

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[flyf15]

Was that before or after 100 of the 50 seaters were parked? We need more of them to be parked too. Also, what you and others here find hard to understand is that this particular agreement to fly freight over the North Atlantic did not cover any of our current 742 cargo flying, nor did it use any of our cargo slots at NRT. Ah forget it, this is way over your head....

Bye Bye--General Lee

It doesn't matter where this freight is being flown. An organization is being set up to fly Delta cargo with pilots not on the Delta seniority list. At the same time, Delta is eliminating its in-house cargo division.

With this move, the cat is out of the bag and those jobs are forever gone. Cargo will no longer be a Delta pilot's job, it will be the job of an international joint venture.



Say Delta was to close Cincinnati resulting in job loses and then at the same time open a hub in Seattle. But, the catch is, this new hub (though still branded as Delta Air Lines) is going to be entirely flown by non-seniority list Delta pilots flying aircraft up to 747 in size contracted from other carriers. Sure, Delta has never flown these routes before, but I don't think I'd try to argue that because of that, it is not a serious scope problem that needs to be immediately addressed.

 

[General Lee]

It doesn't matter where this freight is being flown. An organization is being set up to fly Delta cargo with pilots not on the Delta seniority list. At the same time, Delta is eliminating its in-house cargo division.

With this move, the cat is out of the bag and those jobs are forever gone. Cargo will no longer be a Delta pilot's job, it will be the job of an international joint venture.



Say Delta was to close Cincinnati resulting in job loses and then at the same time open a hub in Seattle. But, the catch is, this new hub (though still branded as Delta Air Lines) is going to be entirely flown by non-seniority list Delta pilots flying aircraft up to 747 in size contracted from other carriers. Sure, Delta has never flown these routes before, but I don't think I'd try to argue that because of that, it is not a serious scope problem that needs to be immediately addressed.

I can sorta see where you are coming from, but AF/KLM/Martinair already have cargo divisions with newer planes (744Fs, MD11Fs, and now 777Fs), so they aren't just now setting up a new division to replace ours. Our cargo ops just has the wrong planes to do the job these days. And, this Joint Venture (JV) states we fly 50% of the flying across the Atlantic (PAX obviously), and get 50% of the sum total profits. (that includes cargo) Those planes are already flying to AMS and CDG (just look at flightaware . com) and see them flying there NOW. With this JV, we will add our name to the shipping manifest, and take some of the profit.

Would it be nice if WE did some of the flying? Sure it would. With what? Let's quickly buy some newer freighters that can do the job. If we say NO to this, those planes will still be flying the same routes---they are doing it now without our names on it. If AF and KLM started using our ANC facility and also the NRT slots, that would be a large red flag, though. Korean Air and others (NCA and JAL Cargo etc), already fly through ANC on the way to points in the USA, but AF/KLM do not.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

GL, I hope your viewpoints aren't representative of the mid-level seniority ranks around here.

If so, you'll never see a widebody captain position, because that will be outsourced.

Here's a bit of a better analogy, the 767-400 no longer flies hawaii and doesn't fly to asia. (Despite what you say, the 747-200 freighters have operated over the Atlantic many many times in the past on REGULAR routes). Say Delta was to say that we were parking the "inefficient" 767-400s as the A330 carries more and burns less, then a few months later announce that they got a current 767-400 operator to fly our Hawaii routes and beyond to Asia. No biggie since the 767-400 doesn't operate those routes, right?

Do you see the absolute fallacy in your logic?

 

[flyf15]

All of this aside, what it all comes down to is that Delta is eliminating seniority positions and using non-seniority list pilots to fly its cargo. These are widebody pilot positions that have been contracted out and its a very slippery slope.

 

[RedRum]

Why wait for the next MEC meeting. According to my very reliable source, the largest LEC at DAL and probably in ALPA, Council 44, will have a meeting on June 23rd. On the advanced agenda will be a resolution asking the LEC to brief the council on scope issues and provide a periodic "scope report card" to the council. How many will actually show up and demand periodic accounting of DAL scope practices?

Why don't the rest of the Councils demand the same from their reps? The resolution will be directing the council to provide the brief and reports, not the MEC. Hard to table your own councils' resolution.

Will this resolution get shot down, due to lack of interest in scope matters, or are the line pilots actually interested in scope and will they make the effort to show up and vote?

NWA ALPA has always had a scope score card.

I think it is a great idea. Heck, I would much rather pay someone continual flight pay loss all year long to watch out for scope violations than some of the dead drag we have in this union.

I agree with some of the posters here that scope creep is taking place from a different angle these days. It isn't just thr RJs anymore. It is foreign carriers. Just ask UAL ALPA with their current situation with Air Lingus. These Joint Venture agreements are a threat. A REAL THREAT.

Personally, I think it is time ALPA stood up and supported the United pilots and their efforts. We are starting to see a steady creep in outsourcing everywhere. Unless we all stand together, this is not going to stop.

I want to see a good showing at the LEC 44 meeting in ATL. I want to see some pointed questions for our reps. We need to ask them what ALPA National is going to do to protect our jobs. Maybe it needs to start at the local level.

 

[flyburg]

Hi, I'm just curious, The deal in the making will be very much along the lines as the deal initially NW had with KLM. Experts from both companies as well as the unions are again coming together ( at least on management level). The deal back then was as far as I know to the satisfaction of both pilot groups, at least I never heard otherwise.

What was the wording of the agreement back then? There have to be some guys with knowledge of scope protection from NW. As far as I can tell from my CLA(KLM) flying was to be equally divided, expressed in seat/miles or tonnes freight or a mixture. Equally divided over a 3 year period with a minimum of 48.5% in a year. If that holds true in the new deal or something along those lines, wouldn't that simply mean that if delta does less cargo they do more pax ops? Or, if Delta aquires cargo planes in the future, it would do more cargo flying again? To come out on the mutually agreed percentage.

Also the ANC NRT argument does not hold true, as far as I know, the JV only covers US EU traffic.

A valid point would be if KLM/AF would fly cargo to the EU and then on to other countries outside the EU(say for example Africa) instead of Delta flying direct to Africa with full freighters. I'm sure though that the Delta union will include scope language on that.

Again, I'm not an expert on the matter. KLM did not get their full freighters until a few years ago, so how did that affect the flying between NW and KLM?

Thanks

 

[General Lee]

GL, I hope your viewpoints aren't representative of the mid-level seniority ranks around here.

If so, you'll never see a widebody captain position, because that will be outsourced.

Here's a bit of a better analogy, the 767-400 no longer flies hawaii and doesn't fly to asia. (Despite what you say, the 747-200 freighters have operated over the Atlantic many many times in the past on REGULAR routes). Say Delta was to say that we were parking the "inefficient" 767-400s as the A330 carries more and burns less, then a few months later announce that they got a current 767-400 operator to fly our Hawaii routes and beyond to Asia. No biggie since the 767-400 doesn't operate those routes, right?

Do you see the absolute fallacy in your logic?

This is like saying Air France decides to buy some more RJs and put a "Delta Codeshare" flight number on it, and you object because you think our RJs should fly it. Guess what? Those AF/KLM and Martainair Holland Cargo planes are ALREADY flying the North Atlantic. Go look on Flight Aware . com. It is very easy to see. They are ALREADY flying those routes. NWA Cargo STOPPED flying the North Atlantic on a regular basis years ago. Sure, we may have a 742 passenger plane on a MAC charter, etc, but the VAST majority of the all cargo 742s fly out of ANC, to the Pacific Rim and to select US cities. This is NOT what AF/KLM/Martinair Cargo will fly in the Joint Venture. They are NOT using our NRT slots. They won't be going through ANC (Korean Air Cargo already flies through ANC on the way to ATL, ORD, JFK, LAX, SFO, DFW, etc from their ICN base), and using our hanger there. Nope.

And speaking of logic, have you figured out which planes we could use on such a venture? Those 742s are gone. Even UPS dumped theirs. (they have a lot more cash than we do) Please tell me what we could use in the near term?

Look, I would like to have our guys flying some widebody cargo planes everywhere. I would. Just because I am fairly senior here doesn't mean I don't care. I also don't want another RJ added to the fleet, and I certainly don't want anymore of our own planes parked. The sad truth here is that a lot of people are getting emotional about something they don't really know anything about. We do need DALPA to give us the scope score card, and they should watch what is going on on all fronts, including cargo. The thing is here, our cargo flying was NOT replaced. They just decided to throw our name on EXISTING service, and maybe give us a slice of the profits. If they start using our stuff in ANC, or using our NRT slots, then we may have to throw up the red flag.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

All of this aside, what it all comes down to is that Delta is eliminating seniority positions and using non-seniority list pilots to fly its cargo. These are widebody pilot positions that have been contracted out and its a very slippery slope.

The truth is that the NWA Cargo venture has gotten more expensive due to the older 742s flying the routes. NWA never replaced those planes, and they could have but chose not to. They never went through with a 744 conversion (something EVERY Asian pacific cargo carrier has ALREADY done--JAL Cargo, NCA, Cathay, Korean, etc). They all now fly 744Fs. What was NWA waiting for? Some say they were going to replace the 744 flying with 787s, and then convert the planes? NWA was supposed to have 3 or so 787s by now, and now is TOO LATE for the conversions. NWA Cargo also lost the DHL contract to Polar, and high fuel etc last year really hurt the operation. There was not a lot of forward planning for that cargo fleet unfortunately.


Bye Bye--General Lee