Scope Bribe

[L-16B]

You have to remember that when dealing with Type A personalities (which is what people on both sides of the table are in pilot labor negotiations), there are two types of gains that matter:

1. Actual, tangible gains that mean real money; or

2. Ego gratification to soften the blow of giving something else up.

If management has to give up money, and they do in today's bargaining environment, then they want a few things of little to no consequence to put in the "win" column to take back to their troops, the board, and the shareholders to make it look like they didn't just cave on everything. It helps them save face, which is very important to a Type A manager. They'll simply dig in their heels and refuse to talk if you won't let them save face somehow. And frankly, pilots are no different.

So, you give them something that really means nothing, they get to lie to the shareholders and to middle management about how it was actually a win for them, and you get what you really wanted all along.

Welcome to the real world of bargaining, as opposed to the STW fantasy world where you just bang your fist on the table and suddenly management starts throwing money at you.

That makes sense, I realize they want to save face (much like they wanted to not be called out as bluffing to eagle), but when it comes to scope I don't think they should give them even a moral victory. Every Eagle 700 would get 5 more seats, and large RJ'S would go from 40% in the MOU to 75%.

If the pilots and Fa's reject their proposals, does it really matter to Wallstreet and the investors/shareholders?

 

[Cptnchia]

Delta's contract reduced the amount of pilots working their regional feed all the while increasing the amount of narrow body aircraft on property.

But didn't they increase the amount of larger RJ's?

What a lot of people don't know is that the company originally wanted 89 seaters at DCI.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

That makes sense, I realize they want to save face (much like they wanted to not be called out as bluffing to eagle), but when it comes to scope I don't think they should give them even a moral victory. Every Eagle 700 would get 5 more seats, and large RJ'S would go from 40% in the MOU to 75%.

Meaningless numbers, since their ability in the modern market to effectively use those planes is limited. Delta isn't using 717s for the hell of it. They're doing it because that's what the modern environment demands with higher fuel prices. A 70 seat RJ just isn't effective in many markets.

If the pilots and Fa's reject their proposals, does it really matter to Wallstreet and the investors/shareholders?

If you reject the proposals and end up in arbitration, are you confident that the arbitrator won't give them better scope than they're asking for in a consensual deal? That's the question to ask yourself.

 

[L-16B]

Meaningless numbers, since their ability in the modern market to effectively use those planes is limited. Delta isn't using 717s for the hell of it. They're doing it because that's what the modern environment demands with higher fuel prices. A 70 seat RJ just isn't effective in many markets.



If you reject the proposals and end up in arbitration, are you confident that the arbitrator won't give them better scope than they're asking for in a consensual deal? That's the question to ask yourself.

Per the terms in the MOU scope cannot be arbitrated and we keep the status quo. It's basically a delta and united copy. So if we go to arbitration we keep the current scope, get average of delta and united payrates, substandard work rules / soft pay, and no profit sharing.

I get the financial aspect of 70 seaters not bring efficient and the regional not being able to hire, but I don't feel comfortable further eroding scope to allow more large rjs.

 

[Trip7]

Of course ALPA thinks it was a win. They like to take things that were going to happen regardless and make it look like they accomplished something huge. They did the exact same thing at L-XJT recently. They got the company to agree to pay all captains regular pay instead of having a small group of 135 captain pay, which is entirely beyond their capability to keep up with. They turn around and say, "Hey look at us? This is such a HUGE win for our pilot group!" When in reality, the company hardly cared, the 135's are being parked by January anyway and it makes things easier for payroll. But hey, ALPA did something awesome right?

It was a huge win. Especially with the block hour ratio protections for mainline built into the language.

Scope Choke is a big reason Delta is currently hiring 115 a month and 3 days ago welcomed the largest new hire class ever to Delta(75).

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Per the terms in the MOU scope cannot be arbitrated and we keep the status quo. It's basically a delta and united copy. So if we go to arbitration we keep the current scope, get average of delta and united payrates, substandard work rules / soft pay, and no profit sharing.

Gotcha. I don't know the MOU that well, so that does change things a bit.

 

[derg]

All my American buddies are pissed, but you know how votes go.

Especially when I mentioned that we get about 5% (or something like that) of our gross earnings in a profit sharing check in addition to our rates.

 

[L-16B]

All my American buddies are pissed, but you know how votes go.

Especially when I mentioned that we get about 5% (or something like that) of our gross earnings in a profit sharing check in addition to our rates.

An email sent to us today from APA said you guys were expecting about 15% in profit sharing for 2014.

 

[Cptnchia]

An email sent to us today from APA said you guys were expecting about 15% in profit sharing for 2014.

That's about right. Already paid out 5% and should be about 10% paid in Feb '15.

 

[motormadness24]

It was a huge win. Especially with the block hour ratio protections for mainline built into the language.

Scope Choke is a big reason Delta is currently hiring 115 a month and 3 days ago welcomed the largest new hire class ever to Delta(75).

Let's not give them too much credit. While it was a win, it wasn't a huge win. A huge win would've been reductions across the board in DCI flying. Not just 50 seaters, not just block hours, but also the so called "large RJ's". But hey, that's my STW fantasy in me.

 

[derg]

That's about right. Already paid out 5% and should be about 10% paid in Feb '15.

 

[Trip7]

Let's not give them too much credit. While it was a win, it wasn't a huge win. A huge win would've been reductions across the board in DCI flying. Not just 50 seaters, not just block hours, but also the so called "large RJ's". But hey, that's my STW fantasy in me.

That dives into opinions. My opinion is all the 50 seater/70 seater/76 seater talk is just clutter. Jobs is all that really matters. And that's dictated by block hours. Mainline jobs are increasing at an unprecedented rate, while regional jobs are decreasing at the same rate.

Don't be led astray by the 76 seat numbers increase. If management offered a return of all regional block hours in exchange for only one outsourced 737, sure it's an increase in seats, but that 10 jobs outsourced in exchange for thousands returned to mainline

 

[motormadness24]

One thing we have to remember though is, capacity has been reduced over the last several years. As an industry, the trend has been to retire more domestic mainline aircraft and replace them with smaller types and/or larger aircraft flown at the regional level. If mainline capacity is reduced, why is capacity that is outsourced, particularly in the 50-76 seat segment increasing? Lets face it, @Maurus mentioned it before, the 50 seat segment was going to be drawn down either way to a more profitable level. That's why I personally don't view the last DL contract to be a huge win from an outsiders point of view. It would be nice to see a large amount of pressure put on management to not erode anymore flying in the 70+ seat market. I believe the block hour limitations placed is a step in the right direction. If the movement of more mainline flying is going to continue, it certainly won't happen overnight.

To add to that, it appears Delta has put a large amount of pressure on United for example to transform their business strategy in order to compete. They got caught being lazy at the wheel and it appears they are now in a hurry to try and dump smaller equipment and attempt to compete with Delta in the 110 seat market. That is very encouraging to see.

 

[BobDDuck]

There were a whole lot of guys at our MEC meeting this morning who were pretty damn excited about the proposed Group IV top out rate. They didn't understand the scope ramifications attached to it at all. Sigh.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

All my American buddies are pissed, but you know how votes go.

Especially when I mentioned that we get about 5% (or something like that) of our gross earnings in a profit sharing check in addition to our rates.

My last one was $90 after taxes...and that was a good one.

This regional stuff is BS, seats, jobs, planes, I don't care...bring it back in house.

 

[USAFplt]

The way it is going it won't even go out to a Vote. The company had 4 months to put together their "proposal" which consisted of 3 pieces of paper.. one had the rates that were mehhhh especially in light of Delta moving up again soon. They would be ok if it did come with Profit Sharing which it didn't. The other 2 were bullet style format with one word. Vague doesn't even begin what it looked like.

My theory is mngt wants this in arbitration especially since the FAs are going that route as well. Sadly APA made the deal with the devil and agreed to specific terms in the MOU. Since we are not in Sec 6 negotiations it will be hard to secure significant gains.

I'm patient...Ill gladly wait it out another year so that we keep scope exactly where it is and achieve pay rates that will be in all likelihood better than what was contained in the proposal.

Make no mistake though..this group is riled up...if not downright militant. They have given up so much in the past decade before us newhires ended up on property. It's refreshing to see senior Capt's make the hard stand about scope as well as the junior folks.

 

[ctab5060X]

I'm patient...Ill gladly wait it out another year so that we keep scope exactly where it is and achieve pay rates that will be in all likelihood better than what was contained in the proposal.

Make no mistake though..this group is riled up...if not downright militant. They have given up so much in the past decade before us newhires ended up on property. It's refreshing to see senior Capt's make the hard stand about scope as well as the junior folks.

I think more and more are starting to realize that the pay rates that are coming are probably going to be better than anything the company proposes right now. It is very, very refreshing to see senior captains realize this and take a stand against scope. Funny thing... on both IOE trips I was asked my thoughts on scope on the first day of the trip.

 

[BobDDuck]

I think more and more are starting to realize that the pay rates that are coming are probably going to be better than anything the company proposes right now. It is very, very refreshing to see senior captains realize this and take a stand against scope. Funny thing... on both IOE trips I was asked my thoughts on scope on the first day of the trip.

I'm probably just way out of the loop and missed it, but... congrats on the new gig.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

The way it is going it won't even go out to a Vote. The company had 4 months to put together their "proposal" which consisted of 3 pieces of paper.. one had the rates that were mehhhh especially in light of Delta moving up again soon. They would be ok if it did come with Profit Sharing which it didn't. The other 2 were bullet style format with one word. Vague doesn't even begin what it looked like.

That's normal, actually. Nobody is going to go to the effort of writing actual contract language for concepts that have not been agreed upon at the table.

 

[Zapphod Beblebrox]

Hey APA,
Meet the new boss.....same as the old boss.