PCL_128 said:
Good grief. Do you really believe that you deserve the right to bump Delta employees off of their own planes? Ridiculous.
1. It is our understanding that the Delta employees also want a higher priority on ASA's flights under the theory that Delta owns that flying. We are talking ASA employees getting bumped off ASA's own airplanes.
2. Only a handful of ASA's employees are senior to any Delta employees. Amongst pilots, the number is less than 450 out of a total group of 25,000 plus pass riders. The idea that Delta employees "need" this superior handling to get ahead of ASA pilots is kinda rediculous.
3. ASA is part of a fully integrated brand with Delta AirLines. We are employees who should be serving a common goal and the same master. Separate and unequal treatment leads to just this sort of "we're better than them" employee bashing which ends up reducing the standards of this profession for all of us.
Delta should be faulted for setting up a system where competing alter ego companies and employees try to destroy eachother within the Delta brand. It is not healthy competition, it is destructive to the Company and the employees. How many ASA pilots do you see on this board talking about ways to save fuel, or provide better service to Delta, or our passengers? Of course the answer is very few. At Comair out stations they push Comair flights while letting ASA's flights run late. At ASA's stations the Comair flights get ignored. At Delta's stations either they treat your flight like a garbage barge, or treat you like a god (if their hate for other Delta operations out weighs their hatred for ASA operations). It is truly the most disfunctional place I've ever seen.
ALPA and the Delta pilots stoke the flames of hatred every chance they get. They don't realize that a handful of pass riders is insignificant and they don't care. It is another chance for the Delta MEC political machine to say "we are better than them."
I think these petty rivalries are a significant part of Delta's destruction. Rather than fixing things, Managers focus on shifting the blame around the system. There are plenty of alter ego managers running redundant operations to the point where no one is truly accountable to the passenger who buys our tickets.
So the Delta MEC manages to pi$$ off a senior ASA Captain who in effect has lost his pass benefits. He can't commute and a flight gets cancelled. Passengers get stuck, businessmen don't get home, but who cares? Is it bad Delta service? Bad ASA service? Bad SkyWest service? Who knows? All the passenger knows is that he has this problem less frequently on AirTran and so he starts flying with them.
I also work in the business world and the partners in my firm and our employees now have a strong preference for AirTran out of Atlanta. They like AirTran's service. AirTran tried alter ego flying and decided it wan't the way to go. I think they were correct. At least AirTran's employees are a lot happier than Delta's despite the fact they make less money.
