New line maint stations opening

southwind said:
All I can tell you, from where I'm sitting is "EVERYTHING" is based on seniority!Now if you had a company, lets say in Detroit, selling hot dogs on a street corner, that was manned by 2 people and all of the sudden people stopped coming to your stand and you were only selling 1/2 the hotdogs you were before, Would "YOU"1.pay the 2nd dude to just stand there2.lay him off, no questions asked3. give him the opportunity to stay employed, by moving him to another street corner?
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How about letting him exercise his seniority? All airlines face layoffs at one time or another, relocation is common but in most Unionized stations you can go wherever your seniority takes you.
 
At DL, you can do that when a position is open.

DL employees cannot generally bump someone from a filled position.

And they are not interested in becoming unionized to change that.
 
topDawg said:
 (and thats not all Delta's fault, people just aren't leaving as fast) 
 
Of course some of you guys also think 60 bucks an hour is only fair too.
 
Delta seems to change how they handle reductions every time it happens.

I, personally, don't have a preference. I like that they really try to inconvenience the least amount of people possible, but on the flip side I'd be pretty pissed if I could hold a spot in say MCO but got stuck going to LGA/LAX/JFK while someone 10 years junior to me is holding a MCO spot.
 
Also Delta does look at the ripple effect. The way they are handling DTW wont effect the company like allowing bumps would.
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Wouldn't you say that people aren't leaving as fast because of the cuts in pay and to the pension? In other words they aren't leaving because they feel they cant afford to retire?

Haven't heard anyone say $60/hr but have heard $50. You don't think your labor is worth what it was say back in 2002? If not then why? In real terms you would need around $50/hr to be earning what you were earning then. Look at pilots, they took cuts and saw their pay lag inflation but no matter how you measure it the gap between mechanics and pilots has grown wider, in other words yes they too fell behind inflation but mechanics fell even further behind the pilots.


Delta changes the way they do things simply because they do what suits Delta best, not what suits the employees. Now the RIF itself is Delta doing whats suits them best, and all carriers have RIFs but at least with Unions there is a balance, with the process where members get some predictability. With no Union Delta not only RIFs as much as they want but they change the rules around however they see fit. What you see as them trying inconvenience as few people as possible really has nothing to do with that, it has to do with costing the company as little as possible. So if its cheaper for them to force you to go to LGA while a guy with 10 years less stays in MCO, guess what ? You go to LGA, do you really think that you would end up in LGA because they didn't want to "inconvenience" the guy in MCO? They "inconvenienced' you, why wouldn't they inconvience him too? NO, its because they didn't want to pick up the costs of allowing you to go to MCO, then pick up the costs of allowing the junior guy to go to LGA.
 
WorldTraveler said:
At DL, you can do that when a position is open.DL employees cannot generally bump someone from a filled position.And they are not interested in becoming unionized to change that.
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How would you know? because you say so? You don't even work in the industry and you know what Delta employees want? I bet all those people in SAmerica would like to be rich, but they aren't, so in your mind thats proof that they want to be poor I guess. Or are you just here making sure that pro-union people don't corrupt the workers at delta with dangerous ideas like they should have a say in how Delta treats them. TOPDAWG said he would be pissed if he was sent to LGA while a Junior guy stayed in MCO, well he has no say in that, because he has no Union, most Union shops would not allow him to be forced to LGA while a Junior guys, or the Bosses son, stays in a more desirable location.
 
Uh, the way employees in the airline industry express whether they want a union or not is to vote.

DL employees have participated in the process multiple times and said no.

And those who have chosen not to vote in a union certainly could have if they had chosen to do so.

Any DL employee knows that your statement about the bosses (sic) son is so inaccurate, it's pathetic.

Again, why are and 700 not answering the question from AA mechanics who want to know why they aren't paid what DL mechanics want.

A little "log in the eye while trying to remove splinters from others?"
 
southwind said:
Never said DL was the perfect company. I just look at how AMT's @ other airlines , that are represented by a union, are doing compared to us and sorry, just don't see the benefit.
And please tell me what airline "Hasn't" outsourced work? Thing is, at TechOps they at least brought in work that actually "MAKES" money for the company!
Never said a group shouldn't be able to vote a union in, just said they need to live with the outcome of that vote!
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your missing the point. This kids is Delta's problem. excuses excuses and even more excuses. 
How many times have you said something negative about the mexico hangar, contractors, outsourcing etc? if you aren't making a stink about it, your helping destroy us just as fast as the unions have. This is the problem. American. United. Southwest. FedEx. etc can have 0 mechanics...none. nada.......and it doesn't have a single small ounce of crap to do with Delta work. none! You should be fighting for the HMVs, the components, the engines....etc that are sent out. That should be done in house. period. 
giving up and just being happy or finding a positive is killing our craft.  
 
Thomas Paine said:
How about letting him exercise his seniority? All airlines face layoffs at one time or another, relocation is common but in most Unionized stations you can go wherever your seniority takes you.
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and if Delta needs to cut a bunch they do that. 
but in the here and now, they are already short of people and trying to work it out....they are trying to cause as small of a blip as they can. Again, positives and negatives. 
 
Thomas Paine said:
Wouldn't you say that people aren't leaving as fast because of the cuts in pay and to the pension? In other words they aren't leaving because they feel they cant afford to retire?
not really. It may get to that for some, but I don't think its to drastic for the top end because the majority of the pension, for them, is still there. 
They had a pretty big mass exodus in BK, they don't have a ton of people leaving because most aren't really old enough, and those that are.....well they will probably die at the hangar
Haven't heard anyone say $60/hr but have heard $50. You don't think your labor is worth what it was say back in 2002? If not then why? In real terms you would need around $50/hr to be earning what you were earning then. Look at pilots, they took cuts and saw their pay lag inflation but no matter how you measure it the gap between mechanics and pilots has grown wider, in other words yes they too fell behind inflation but mechanics fell even further behind the pilots.
me too! me too! me too!
you think i give a hot flying crap about what the pilots make? you know they also work more than what they did back in the day. They are a big cause for mainline jets being flown at DCI, UAX and MQ..... they have their short falls too. 
 
I want a fair pay, and work done in house. I want fair health care cost and fair time off. Good 401K match. Delta is in the top 3 of AMT pay.... (for PAX carriers) 
Do i want to get 50-60 an hour? hell yeah, but is the trade off going from 12,000 employees to 2, 000 employees? Hell i think Delta does more UPS and FX work than all the guys on their list do.......... so no. I don't want that. 
 
You guys didn't take or didn't understand ECON1101...I get that. I have a degree in business. I understand that the airlines have people paying less and fuel being 200%+ what it was in the 90s early 2000s.  Margins in this industry are terrible, sure Delta is doing well, but AMR and UAL are still not anything close to something investors would put money into. Washington is trying as hard as they can to kill the economy.....These are all issues the airlines have to deal with. 
 
Delta changes the way they do things simply because they do what suits Delta best, not what suits the employees. Now the RIF itself is Delta doing whats suits them best, and all carriers have RIFs but at least with Unions there is a balance, with the process where members get some predictability. With no Union Delta not only RIFs as much as they want but they change the rules around however they see fit. What you see as them trying inconvenience as few people as possible really has nothing to do with that, it has to do with costing the company as little as possible. So if its cheaper for them to force you to go to LGA while a guy with 10 years less stays in MCO, guess what ? You go to LGA, do you really think that you would end up in LGA because they didn't want to "inconvenience" the guy in MCO? They "inconvenienced' you, why wouldn't they inconvience him too? NO, its because they didn't want to pick up the costs of allowing you to go to MCO, then pick up the costs of allowing the junior guy to go to LGA.
Hey, look at you, you can repeat exactly what i said. Thanks. I understand why they do it, but this isn't United, this isn't American. Delta doesn't treat its employees like crap like you said they do. 
 
Question for you union guys, If you couldn't make it into work due to WX, what would you airline do to you? I know Delta found places for people to sleep, including flying them out of the south and turning around and flying back, as well as paid time off without counting it.......would your airline do that?  
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Thomas Paine said:
How would you know? because you say so? You don't even work in the industry and you know what Delta employees want? I bet all those people in SAmerica would like to be rich, but they aren't, so in your mind thats proof that they want to be poor I guess. Or are you just here making sure that pro-union people don't corrupt the workers at delta with dangerous ideas like they should have a say in how Delta treats them. TOPDAWG said he would be pissed if he was sent to LGA while a Junior guy stayed in MCO, well he has no say in that, because he has no Union, most Union shops would not allow him to be forced to LGA while a Junior guys, or the Bosses son, stays in a more desirable location. bull crap! complete and total horse crap. This is typical union horse sh!t that really pisses me off. This doesn't and wouldn't happen at Delta. 
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He knows what they want because they haven't changed it. To a point, WT is right. Let me see, I can join the TWU, IAM, IBT and AMFA and get screwed over.....or I can work for Delta. They have some of the highest amount of insourcing, some of the best pay etc......and is a great place to work. On the TechOps side they take care of you. 
and they are trying to make money using TechOps. 
 
I'm glad you guys are happy with your unions, cause yall have done a much, much, much better job of dragging us down than anyone at Delta. the latest case, the TWU being chicken s**ts in AMR's BK set us back even more. Matter of fact, you guys probably lost any chance of bring all overhauls back in house we had. Thanks, good work. *rolls eyes*
 
you want to know why a union isn't really talked about? because for our craft the union has been such an epic fail that its pointless. Maybe if that side ever gets its crap together....
 
sometimes its better not to mess with the many, to help the few. 
700UW said:
AA just went through chapter 11.
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and the TWU was complete worthless and a bunch of chicken s**ts. 
Why is that the excuse for the unions. Didn't the pilots and the FAs have the contracts tossed......how did it really screw them?
 
the AA AMTs had a chance, but are so split between the crazy and the supper crazy that they just screwed all of us. 
WorldTraveler said:
And tell me what is the rough seniority of those people and when did DL hire the last person with those qualifications who are working as they are.

If there are as few as the handful that Dawg mentions, no union is going to win a case in kicking a few people out of an existing job.

If DL continues to hire people to do that, then I can understand the angst but there would have to be alot more people involved if that was the case.

I get that you like what you do and why you have no desire to move elsewhere - and I strongly bet that you do your job very well. But tell me again why DL is in the wrong because you want to continue to build typewriters when the world has all moved on to Word decades ago?

You harp on the Mexico hangar but can you tell us where other carriers send their airframe overhauls and if the other airlines stand a chance of recovering anything from the companies to which they outsource. The work is going out the door. At least with the AM JV, DL has a chance of gaining engine and component business in return, something other carriers are not doing.
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Hey man if you buy into that horse crap good for you. How many contracts has Delta gotten because of it so far? I haven't seen a single one. 
 
Why? because its s a smoke screen. Airlines don't care about that stuff. Delta doesn't send a single engine, not ONE, to a vendor that does its overhauls. Why? because it doesn't matter. 
 
Delta is building that hangar for one reason, the outsourcing of overhauls has been a complete and total fail. They have changed vendors three times for most airplane types in the 6 years the original contracts would have lasted. They stay in the bays longer and the margins are getting smaller and smaller.
Hell, they don't even say its cost anymore to us. Now its dock time. "oh we don't want a plane in the dock for a month....." this has happened with Delta before.....every single time they send big work out, it fails in a few years, then comes back. Delta's cost are simply to low.  
 
They are, at the end of the day, just scared of people like you. It just cost to much because it just does. Thats what wall street thinks. It is simply not the cool thing to do anymore. 
 
I have heard they are down to saving 10-20M a year(from 50 at the time the work was sent out) in cost savings. Then you factor in the potential cost of the airplanes sitting in the hangar for an extra month............ i would be willing to bet it comes out to be about even.
 
 
matter of fact, I'm starting to think that if wall street wouldn't have a complete fit, you would see that hangar space in Mexico being added in the US. TechOps doesn't do other airlines HMVs just because those airlines are stupid.  
but the real problem is the lack of fight from the TechOps employees. They just fall in line. 
 
Its simple really, the company must make money. No question.....
 
 
but Delta just made 2.7 billion and will probably make 3+ in 2014.......I think it is simply crazy to send the work out that they do to save MAYBE 50 Million a year. (high balling hard) 
It "had" to be done to save the company, but like the 5th week of vacation...don't feed my the BK crap anymore. Cut the Mexico hangar and bring the work home. 
 
outstanding perspective from an ACTIVE DL mechanic.

esp. this

"you want to know why a union isn't really talked about? because for our craft the union has been such an epic fail that its pointless. Maybe if that side ever gets its crap together....

"sometimes its better not to mess with the many, to help the few."

----

as for outsourcing airframe maintenance, I can understand your argument. I don't think anyone can doubt that anyone can do the work better or faster than US workers -and that is true whether we are talking about AA, DL, or US.

but you can't also argue that airlines should just create hundreds of new jobs to bring work back in the US when there is ample evidence that business growth in the US is being hindered by growing regulation, including Obamacare which will add hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to DL - because they have said so.

As for the Mexico hangar, it is not open is it? If it isn't, then it probably isn't a surprise there are no contracts. If it is, then I would expect there is a ramp up period before they want to start aggressively going after contracts.

DL might not send out engine overhauls along with airframe overhauls, but other airlines do, even if it is to different vendors. It has to do with technical expertise. DL wins engine business because it is worth it for airlines in other parts of the world to truck an engine for several hundred miles to an airport that DL serves to then fly it to the US, have it overhauled, and then repeat the process. That is a fairly high degree of expertise in order to justify that kind of process, esp. when the margin on that type of work is well into the double digits.

Even if DL wanted to do its overhauls in house they would have to acquire enormous amounts of hangar space since airframe overhauls take up a lot of space and all of the US airlines have significantly cut the amount of inhouse hangar space they have. Even though some quality spacemight exist in the US, it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire maintenance space necessary to bring back any significant amount of airframe overhauls.

Given that DL is aggressively paying down debt and paying cash for new aircraft, the cost to start bringing maintenance back in house is very high.

thanks for the tip, but I can assure you that I have no influence on Wall Street or mahogany row.
 
No the Pilots and FAs at AA did not have their CBAs abrogated.
 
they didn't in 2003 either but that didn't stop cuts from being imposed on them... whether it is in a court under 1113 or on the steps of the courthouse, airlines have had pretty good success at getting unions to capitulate when put under pressure.
 
Wrong again.
 
In 2003 all the unions at AA entered into concessionary bargaining and negotiated givebacks, the members ratified it.
 
When AA filed chapter 11 Section 1113C process was entered, and once again, the unions negotiated and the members ratifed concession.
 
Please show the board who that is imposed?
 
Did anyone at Delta besides the Pilots and Dispatchers negotiated when Leadership 7.5 happened?
 
Did anyone at Delta besides the Pilots and Dispatchers negotiate when Delta filed Chapter 11?
 
Nope, they didnt, now they have concessions imposed, not AA.
 
if you think that the employees of AA negotiated the reductions they got in 2003 or 2011, then you truly have a very different reality than they do.

The company successfully both times used the threat of 1113 to force labor to give back enough that the company didn't have to move forward with a full legal process.

The process is immaterial. The results are what counts. AA employees are now - 12 years after 9/11 - with lower pay and soon to be more layoffs than their peers at other airlines who have also been thru mergers. (hard to say how many layoffs UA employees will endure).

Still doesn't change that you and I can debate this stuff all day long but DL ACTIVE employees have voted and will vote and neither you or I will be part of that decision.

If DL employees are not content with what they have, they should vote... and I support their attempts to try and find something better if they think they can get it.
 
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