Thanks, Baba.
FWIW, I can tell you that gray work rules- and the consistently inconsistent application of the ones we have- is driving huge numbers of cards on the ACS side.
Same story with ignoring seniority, lack of any sort of "real" safety committee(s) and/or enforcement, and staffing.
Summer's gonna be brutal for all of us.
...Or you put a structure in place to mitigate as much of that as possible.
Why would you discourage democracy in the workplace? Anything less than 100% participation should be seen as a disappointment.
Kev,
thanks for your perspective as an active DL employee. It is welcome.
Summer is always brutal. People usually forget how bad it is by the 3rd week of October when profits for the 3rd quarter are out. The 3rd week of July provides a shot in the arm to keep going for another 5 weeks or so of summer.
IT will be the same this summer. DL employees should haul in some hefty profit sharing esp. given that analysts are saying DL could be headed for an unheard of $4B profit for the year.
as for the disruptions and swings in the industry, much of those have long been the source of the boom and bust environment in the industry and often related to the failure of the industry to manage capacity. Fewer carriers make that possible today as hasn't been the case in decades. But there are issues like problems at other carriers that will shift demand to other carriers and external issues such as labor shortages (RJ pilots) and the typical fuel cost issues that can raise their head.
We haven't seen a fuel shock for quite some time but if one happens, the value of the refinery will become more apparent than it is now when DL appears set to continue to maintain a couple percent price fuel cost advantage at the least over its peers.
DL's mgmt. team has done more to get rid of the causes that have created the boom and bust in the industry than probably any airline mgmt. team ever has. The whole debt reduction strategy is yet another. When there is a major external shock (Russia, N. Korea, who knows) and DL has $10 billion less debt than its peers, it will become apparent how much differently DL is being run than other carriers.
On another note, I would be curious as to how you believe DL is cutting corners or not promoting a safety culture. You can throw in the inconsistency on other issues if you would like but the safety aspect particularly intrigues me.
and, yes, DL has long cross-trained FAs on all active aircraft types as part of the operational efficiency and flexibility that gives DL advantages over its peers.
I agree with you that any democratic process should have maximum participation but it is also worth noting that there will always be those who don't participate and DL was very successful in arguing to its employees of the necessity of voting after the rule changes went into effect and there were many people who had never bothered to vote who then did so.
