The DL TA

[~~~^~~~]

1. Who said we will trade any money for scope?

2. Why couldn't we move the seat request back to 70 seats from 76, and still give additional 70 seaters to DCI? Sounds like ASA will bring the larger CRJ anyway, and still configure it with first class seats, up to 70.

General:

It seems I'm hearing the same sort of rumor from sources other than the boards. Do you remember the original concession demand from management, I think it was back in December? It seemed like it was 200 CRJ-700's (up from the current limit of 125) and was it 60 aircraft up to 78 seats? I don't remember management ever actually making a 90 seat propposal at DCI. The rumors I'm hearing now are close to identical with the seat limit rolled back to 76, matching what you wrote (addiding a very small amount of credibiility since you are hearing similar rumors) I'm also hearing furlough protection and growth guarantees to unlock the DCI scope changes.

I know that you are opposed to anyone growing anything at Delta - but if "the ASA airplanes" are going to be CRJ-900's regardless of how many seats are in them why does it make a difference to you if Delta recieves the additional revenue? ASA / SkyWest gets paid the same regardless. If Delta can make more money with the same airplane - why not do so?

General - Delta is struggling for its very survival. They are in worse shape than Northwest and United were. Why do you still want to fight wars that do nothing but harm revenues that pay your wages and put fuel in the aircraft that you want to upgrade on? Whether or not DCI has 70, 76, or 78 seats really does not matter to you. It will not change your upgrade time, or mine. So what's the fuss?

What bears watching are the Comair Flight Attendants this week. They have similar power to shut Delta down and nearly nothing to lose. What many of us are forgetting is that Delta managers are no longer calling the shots in these negotiations - creditors are. Creditors can be much more arbitrary and do not have experience running an airline.

 

["GO AROUND"]

Where does it stop fins? 76 or 78 seats now, 90-100 seats later? As someone else wrote in a different thread, DAL managment would have DCI do all but transcon and a few other domestic flying and let DAL do international if they could. It's gotta stop somewhere.

Gen. how much growth at mainline would it take for DAL pilots to give those 6 or 8 seats? Not flaming but just wondering? A huge 100 seat order, 787 order, anything?

 

[~~~^~~~]

Where does it stop fins? 76 or 78 seats now, 90-100 seats later?

Well, it isn't up to me. ALPA and the Delta pilots make this decision.

If it were up to me, I would say it stops when all ALPA members are allowed to participate in the process of runing ALPA. ALPA sees this as a "we win - you lose" or "you win - we lose." A union which allowed all of its members to particpate in the representational process could find a lot more "we win together" scenarios.

DL's cost problem on these near 100 seat airplanes is not the pilots, it is the Delta infastructure, including outside consulting firms like McKinsey who have been leaching huge money out of the Company and making lousy decisions since Ron Allen's day.

My point is that we all know CRJ900's are coming to SkyWest, perhaps they will be given to ASA. Might as well make the best possible use of them. I do not see ASA launching another fleet type so the pragmatic answer to where this ends is whatever configuration the CRJ900 ends up in.

 

[737 Pylt]

Well, it isn't up to me. ALPA and the Delta pilots make this decision.

If it were up to me, I would say it stops when all ALPA members are allowed to participate in the process of runing ALPA. ALPA sees this as a "we win - you lose" or "you win - we lose." A union which allowed all of its members to particpate in the representational process could find a lot more "we win together" scenarios.

DL's cost problem on these near 100 seat airplanes is not the pilots, it is the Delta infastructure, including outside consulting firms like McKinsey who have been leaching huge money out of the Company and making lousy decisions since Ron Allen's day.

My point is that we all know CRJ900's are coming to SkyWest, perhaps they will be given to ASA. Might as well make the best possible use of them. I do not see ASA launching another fleet type so the pragmatic answer to where this ends is whatever configuration the CRJ900 ends up in.

Perhaps instead of blaming the DL pilots for all of your problems, you should look right next door. Your SKY brethren are holding you guys back from making more money! How soon before your concessions/pay are brought in line with SKY?? Isn't that the premise of your lawsuit?? If that is the case, then maybe you should file a lawsuit against the SKY pilots for flying 70 seat jets for 50 seat rates. It sounds like your issues are not with the DL pilot group, but your SKY counterparts!
Just some food for thought!
737

 

[WSurf]

I want to see mainline pilots flying 90 seat Dash8 Q500s if DH ever builds them.

Final Jeopardy: When was the last time a mainline pilot group flew a turboprop, and what aircraft was it?

This might happen soon enough!!!
http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_aviationdaily_story.jsp?id=news/BOM03156.xml

 

[No Delay]

737 Pylt,

Is that the only arguement you can make?

General = "I will vote NO on any TA that has scope relief"

737 Pylt = "Skywest flies 70 seats for 50 seat pay"


Two comments: Skywest did agree to lower payrates. However, with their work rules (rigs) they actually come out better than ASA with their higher rates.

Skywest agreeing to those rates is so minor in comparison to the b i t c h beating that the delta pilots have taken.

Now, I don't believe anyone is wishing anything bad on delta. Everyone would love to see more airplanes and growth at mainline (that's better for everyone).

It is the fact that you (the Delta pilots) have played the biggest role (not the only role...but certainly the biggest) in the down spiral of this industry. Yet, none of you are man enough to take some responsibility for it. It is always someones elses fault.

 

[Dave Benjamin]

Perhaps instead of blaming the DL pilots for all of your problems, you should look right next door. Your SKYW brethren are holding you guys back from making more money! How soon before your concessions/pay are brought in line with SKY??

Sorry but it's time for you to go back to the village.

SKYW pilots make more money than ASA pilots.

 

[737 Pylt]

It is the fact that you (the Delta pilots) have played the biggest role (not the only role...but certainly the biggest) in the down spiral of this industry. Yet, none of you are man enough to take some responsibility for it. It is always someones elses fault.

LMAO! Is that what you said to the Us Airways pilots when they voted in concessions...How about the UAL pilots??
The DL pilots, in fact voted in the most lucrative (highly paid) contract in aviation history....And this down spiral is OUR fault.
Congrats, you get the idiot of the year award!
737

Sorry but it's time for you to go back to the village.

SKYW pilots make more money than ASA pilots.

From Airline pilot central:

Year 10 CRJ cpt SKYW ASA
$74.00 (crj 70)$57.00 (e120) $81.00 (crj70) $71.00

Now back to your rock Dave!

 

[General Lee]

Where does it stop fins? 76 or 78 seats now, 90-100 seats later? As someone else wrote in a different thread, DAL managment would have DCI do all but transcon and a few other domestic flying and let DAL do international if they could. It's gotta stop somewhere.

Gen. how much growth at mainline would it take for DAL pilots to give those 6 or 8 seats? Not flaming but just wondering? A huge 100 seat order, 787 order, anything?

Well, I am hearing other things as time goes by. Now I have heard it was 15 76 seaters in 07, and 15 in 08, with 3 additional mainline aircraft for every one 76 seater after that. Lots of things are swirling over here since we have very little info to go on but leaks.... Here was part of the last code-a-phone:


Item one. ALPA will not publicly comment on the proposed Tentative Agreement reached by the negotiating committees of the union and Delta. Our governing body, the Delta MEC, must have time to study the agreement before we release any detail or make any comment on the agreement to the public. We can say that the figures quoted in the April 15, Wall Street Journal article titled "Delta, Pilots Reach Tentative Deal" are not accurate.






So, what does that mean? Are we giving MORE or LESS than what was said in the WSJ?

Most of the reps I have talked to--all 3 ATL reps and I have read about 2 of the NYC reps, said nothing larger than 70 seats at DCI. So, we will have to see what happens with the CVG reps (who are watching Comair grow while they shrink) and the SLC reps (who saw Montana go away last Summer). We shall see I guess. Other rumors say possible 737 orders and maybe some 787 orders down the road. Carrots.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

737 Pylt,

Is that the only arguement you can make?

General = "I will vote NO on any TA that has scope relief"

737 Pylt = "Skywest flies 70 seats for 50 seat pay"


Two comments: Skywest did agree to lower payrates. However, with their work rules (rigs) they actually come out better than ASA with their higher rates.

Skywest agreeing to those rates is so minor in comparison to the b i t c h beating that the delta pilots have taken.

Now, I don't believe anyone is wishing anything bad on delta. Everyone would love to see more airplanes and growth at mainline (that's better for everyone).

It is the fact that you (the Delta pilots) have played the biggest role (not the only role...but certainly the biggest) in the down spiral of this industry. Yet, none of you are man enough to take some responsibility for it. It is always someones elses fault.

That makes no sense. We actually brought the pay rates up to the HIGHEST they have ever been, and Fedex and Southwest are now holding the bar that high. SkyWest did the opposite, starting a trend that saw common sense traded for growth. Where is that last raise you were promised? Large profits and no raise, and nothing to say about it. No real union = no chance to fight for it.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[81Horse]

Final Jeopardy: When was the last time a mainline pilot group flew a turboprop, and what aircraft was it?

Gotta be post-merger NWA, and the old Republic CV580s, right? That's The Beaver's answer anyway.

 

[General Lee]

Well, it isn't up to me. ALPA and the Delta pilots make this decision.

If it were up to me, I would say it stops when all ALPA members are allowed to participate in the process of runing ALPA. ALPA sees this as a "we win - you lose" or "you win - we lose." A union which allowed all of its members to particpate in the representational process could find a lot more "we win together" scenarios.

DL's cost problem on these near 100 seat airplanes is not the pilots, it is the Delta infastructure, including outside consulting firms like McKinsey who have been leaching huge money out of the Company and making lousy decisions since Ron Allen's day.

My point is that we all know CRJ900's are coming to SkyWest, perhaps they will be given to ASA. Might as well make the best possible use of them. I do not see ASA launching another fleet type so the pragmatic answer to where this ends is whatever configuration the CRJ900 ends up in.

You keep saying the CRJ900s, but in reality it is the CRJ-705, right? I think they are slightly different. I don't think the CRJ-705 can be changed into a CR9 seat wise. Still, holding the bar at 70 seats, even on that CRJ-705, is better than nothing. I would be surprised to see our MEC members vote for larger than 70 seats. But, maybe they know something I do not.....not likely though.... Also, I think the people advising Delta now are the Blackstone Partners. They got a $2 million down payment, and something like $800,000 a month now to advise...?

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[imacdog]

CVG reps (who are watching Comair grow while they shrink)

In case you haven't been to CVG in the last six months, Comair has been shrinking too.

 

[Jon Rivoli]

50-99 seats was approved by our pilot group shortly after Sept. 11, United had just filed Chapter 11 and Delta had just told us that we were fired, unless we could cut our costs by 20%. It was suppose to be basically an 18 month extention of our existing agreement and I for one (and I suspect a lot of others as well) figured it was a bad time to try to fight for industry leading pay and that perhaps things would be better in 18 months. We made a mistake. We made a mistake because we didn't anticipate a three year bankruptcy at United. We didn't anticipate that the industry would still be in the ********************ter three years later. We didn't anticipate that Delta would file for bankrupcy last year. We didn't anticipate a lot of things, but we weren't the only ones. I think most people thought that this was just another downturn in a cyclical industry. Delta did (both pilots and management); their strategy (MGNT) was to hunker down, mortgage the farm and wait it out, just like they always did. Didn't work this time. Come to find out that this time is different; LCC's and oil $70 a barrel. The past is history and the future ain't going to look like the past. What's it going to look like? I don't know and we didn't know three years ago either. At the time we made that concession we believed our survival was at stake. Brad Holt said, "Deal me an Ace." He has played it like a joker. At that time we didn't have any planes larger than 50 seats and as far as I knew we weren't getting any, Scope was still intact at both United and Delta so, so what if the compay wants a 50-99 seat rate. A moot issue. There is also a rate for 100 plus seats, we don't have any of those so, so what? We're not geting any, just ask General Lee.
To catagorically demonize the SKYW pilots for a the decision we made back then requires a willful ignorance of the facts and history. The SKYW pilot group isn't catagorically different than any other pilot group. Jerry doesn't just hire stupid people. What is different at SKYW is the the experience the pilot group has with their relationship with management. ANY other pilot group in our shoes WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING!

Peace or GFYS, it's up to you. I don't care.

 

[No Delay]

I will not argue that Delta was not great in it's day! You guys did have nice contracts / pay. However, I do not believe pay has been the main factor in the down spiral of the industry.

I believe the regional jet - while it has served the public by opening up markets would not be practical for larger a/c - has been a devastating blow to the profession (as far as pay and growth for the mainlines).

So, what I previously said was that Delta played a huge role in the down spiral of this industry. I didn't say you guys were not paid well. You guys refused the "little" jet - never thinking it would take so much flying away from you.

Now you guys are begging for them back...willing to fly them for cheap ("get them on the property and we can negotiate later"). How is that any different than Comair????? How can you guys take the cuts that you have and still put down skywest?

Also, if you guys would have agreed to "One List" almost all of delta pilots would be flying right now. But no, you guys were too good for that.

That is what I meant when I said Delta played a huge role...not that you were not paid well. I guess I just have a hard time understanding how you guys can take shots at other airlines....

I will say that I agree that delta needs all the jets back at mainline. But I don't see that happening. I also worry about what this TA will do for the relationship between DCI and Delta. It was already bad...this TA (if it passes) is going to make those relationship worse. ASA will be blamed...

Congrats, you get the idiot of the year award!
737

Thanks man, I've never won an award before!