DELTA DROPS ACA

A

ATA_victim

New Member
As you now know, Delta Air Lines has made a decision to terminate our agreement six months from now. This is a decision we had all known was a possibility—and it is now becoming official. Delta is also asking us to move our entire Boston operation to Cincinnati, so all 30 of our 328JETs will be based in CVG.



Members of senior management and Employee Services have been in Boston, Cincinnati and Columbia today to share the news with our affected employees. Here are the answers to some of the most frequently-asked questions that have arisen from this situation.



Q: Why is Delta terminating our agreement? And why now?

A: To begin with, this is considered a termination without cause, meaning we have not violated any part of our contract with them to cause a change in the relationship. Delta said in its press release that they were terminating based on our pursuit of Independence Air and because their ALPA pilot agreement does not allow Delta to have partners in the Delta Connection program who fly larger than 70 seat aircraft on the same certificate, regardless of whether those larger aircraft are used for Delta, another legacy carrier, or independently. Regardless of the reasons, they have the right under our contract to terminate for no reason with 180 days notice and have decided to exercise that right.
 
Sounds like the same reason Mesa had to drop Frontier Express when they got United Express contracts. Go scope.
 
Kind of like polygamy.

If you're already married, but meet another person you'd like to make a spouse, you've got to drop one.

Don't blame it on the first wife, bro!

Besides, it's not scope, it's just that it doesn't make any sense to do business with your direct competitor in a hot market.
 
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Sounds like the same reason Mesa had to drop Frontier Express when they got United Express contracts. Go scope.

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Not to sound like the "dumpee in denial" after the relationship ended but as far as I know, Mesa did not ditch Frontier. Frontier ditched Mesa. I think Mesa would have left Frontier down the road since they had the big new United contract but Mesa was going to milk Frontier for as much as they could with their horrid reliability. Frontier was glad to let them go over to United once Horizon was lined up. It even got so bad at one point last year that Frontier pulled two of the 737-200s out of retirement to replace Mesa RJs that couldn't fly due to various reasons. From talking to some of the pilots that flew for JetExpress under Mesa, they claimed that their hands were tied by management many times and some were just ashamed of their airline. Perhaps Mesa's management didn't care about Frontier on purpose, but the nail in the coffin had to be the few weeks the 200s ran their routes.
 
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If you're already married, but meet another person you'd like to make a spouse, you've got to drop one.

Don't blame it on the first wife, bro! [ QUOTE ]


True, but what doesn't make sense is, if the Skyway rumor turns out to be true, the situation is very similar. Skyway is owned by Midwest Connect, which operates big airplanes.

The word from the chief pilot is that the timetable for the transition is still open. Hopefully we can stretch it out for 18 months or so, in which case there probably won't be further furloughs.
 
American Airlines owns American Eagle and they're our connector out of LAX but there really aren't any competitive markets.

Now if we're using I-air/Delta Connection on a Do-328 flight from IAD to CVG to serve as Delta connection, but then you're got an I-air A320 doing the same route, I can't see how that would be mutually beneficial.

I dunno, the rule and contractural language was there for the past umpteen years, I can't see how that same pre-existing language/business decision is suddenly making Delta a poo poo stinky head.
 
I think our A319's and 320's are gonna be doing west coast trips and MCO rounds....I dont see why we cant keep delta out of cvg and keep D-connection routes seperate ...im just mad that i cant fly free on delta
 
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, well say that I'm Jeff Gordon, right? And I hire Joe Smitty to be my crew chief. Suddenly, Joe Smitty buys his own race car and I have to depend on Joe Smitty to still do a bang-up job for my #24 car while he's on the same track trying to beat the snot out of my track times.

Do you keep Joe Smitty, even though he knew what the agreement was in advance, broke it and then became the competition just to be a "nice guy" or what does one expect?

(Can anyone tell that i've spent way too much time in the southeast this week?)
 
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(Can anyone tell that i've spent way too much time in the southeast this week?)

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I wanted to ask if Doug has spent too much time away from home lately but didn't want to throw gas on the fire. I don't want to read too much into the replies, but I could sense the temperature rising.

Are we looking any stronger at SLC now?
 
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I think our A319's and 320's are gonna be doing west coast trips and MCO rounds....I dont see why we cant keep delta out of cvg and keep D-connection routes seperate ...im just mad that i cant fly free on delta

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Because of the agreement that both ACA and Delta signed and dated.
 
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I wanted to ask if Doug has spent too much time away from home lately but didn't want to throw gas on the fire. I don't want to read too much into the replies, but I could sense the temperature rising.


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Nah, I just get a little impatient and testy when in one thread, someone implies that I'm horribly overpaid and in another thread, I'm some evil guy because my airline dropped a connector because of a violation of their agreement.
 
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Nah, I just get a little impatient and testy when in one thread, someone implies that I'm horribly overpaid and in another thread, I'm some evil guy because my airline dropped a connector because of a violation of their agreement.


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I think that is kind of funny too Doug. Not one person has come up with a valid arguement stating that you are overpaid. I know you aren't close to being overpaid, underpaid more like it.

All it is, people justifying their wages against yours, and saying to themselves, why is he worth more than me? And they just don't get the sh*t that pilots go through to get where they are.
 
Thanks.

Seriously.

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It keeps a little weird on an aviation website having to be the few people that have to say "Hold on folks! There's a lot more to this job than flying airplanes and laying over in Paris!"

That's primarily the reason why the entry level jobs pay so low. People are willing to gleefully sell their children to get into a cockpit at any cost -- and lots of people absolutely capitalize on that enthusiasm.

I can probably name 100 people that would happily do my job for free. Heck, there's people that'll PAY for the opportunity, just take EagleJet, Gulfstream, etc as an example, just to 'move up'.

Don't get me wrong, I tremendously love the performance of the work I do, but flying is actually a pretty small part of the 'big picture' of what an airline pilot actually does.

I dunno, hear me now and believe me later and all that...

Believe me, I was that kid at ERAU arguing with my roommate that scab Eastern pilots making $70,000 was a good wage because my dad only made $40G's and we lived like kings in Tulare, and my dad didn't get to fly the A300. What're those guys complaining about? My mom gave me $500 for food for the semester so what are they complaining about?! Eat less steak and more Top Ramen!

Really, I was that dorkus. Then I saw the light on a stand-up overnight in a crackhouse-quality hotel as a new hire 1900 pilot.

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I guess what I'm trying to say is that, well say that I'm Jeff Gordon, right? And I hire Joe Smitty to be my crew chief. Suddenly, Joe Smitty buys his own race car and I have to depend on Joe Smitty to still do a bang-up job for my #24 car while he's on the same track trying to beat the snot out of my track times.

Do you keep Joe Smitty, even though he knew what the agreement was in advance, broke it and then became the competition just to be a "nice guy" or what does one expect?

(Can anyone tell that i've spent way too much time in the southeast this week?)

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Is "Doug Taylor uses a NASCAR reference" the Third or the Fourth sign of the Apocalypse?
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Doug I like the NASCAR reference, for the record.

BUT !!!!!

Who "implied" you were "horribly overpaid?" Don't you DARE say it was me as I never said any such thing! All I said was that Major airline pilots are making upper middle class wages (as they should be!)

This is not a trailer park trash profession. Anyone who is trusted daily with the lives of hundreds of people earns every dollar they make.

Sadly, the industry is moving away from that, and I don't see a way to fix it. As long as airlines will put inexperienced pilots in the right seat of a jet ...

I suppose we will never get back to the "grand dame" days of aviation.

I had a great discussion going with Spanky, a Comair captain friend of mine who stopped by my office yesterday, and we agree that it's probably going to take some horrible accident or event to bring the standards back up in the cockpit. He regularly flies with 300 hr FOs. He told me that they all fly pretty well but they haven't developed any real judgement yet.

My favorite quote of his - "Until you've done single pilot IFR at night in a single engine with only an ADF, you aren't really a pilot in my book!"

I guess you can see he's a freight dog
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I think the FAA needs to step up and address the experience in the Part 121 cockpit. The current minimums were drafted at a time to allow a low time pilot to fly freight in a Cessna 210, not a 50 seat jet powered machine.

I know that this will never happen under pressure from the ATA and airlines, but how unfortunate for our industry. I think 1500hrs and 500 multi would be a good minimum standard for new hire first officer and 3000 hours with 1500 hours of Part 121 multiengine jet time would be a good captain upgrade minimum standard.

As an airline pilot, I'm very embarrassed by the ads in trade publications promoting the 300 hour wonders...and even more so by the fact that there are some of these types actually flying airliners out there.
 
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American Airlines owns American Eagle


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Not to be nit-picky, but the corporate structure of AMR is a little different than Delta's. AMR Corporation owns American Airlines, AMR Corporation owns American Eagle Airlines, and also Executive Airlines (which last I heard was still operating under thier own certificate, not Eagle's). American Airlines doesn't own American Eagle in the same way that Delta Air Lines owns Comair.
 
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I think the FAA needs to step up and address the experience in the Part 121 cockpit. The current minimums were drafted at a time to allow a low time pilot to fly freight in a Cessna 210, not a 50 seat jet powered machine.

I know that this will never happen under pressure from the ATA and airlines, but how unfortunate for our industry. I think 1500hrs and 500 multi would be a good minimum standard for new hire first officer and 3000 hours with 1500 hours of Part 121 multiengine jet time would be a good captain upgrade minimum standard.


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The insurance companies are doing their part in this. Most major carriers require 2500 TT and 1000 Turbine to be a captain at an airline. However, many are putting in caveats that allow an FO with 1 year with the company to upgrade. This was how an ERJ captain was recently upgraded with less than 2500 TT. Remember the Roanoke incident?

I'd like to see an expanded minimum for any cockpit crewmembers for 121. Not necessarily an hourly limit, but some measure of experience.

Some airlines used to require an ATP to work for them.

The problem is that some 300 hr pilots are darn good pilots! And sadly, there are some 8000 hr yo yos out there too.
 
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Doug I like the NASCAR reference, for the record.

BUT !!!!!

Who "implied" you were "horribly overpaid?" Don't you DARE say it was me as I never said any such thing! All I said was that Major airline pilots are making upper middle class wages (as they should be!)

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Not you John, sheesh!
 
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