Half as long Bob?..Try 1/10th the training. It takes a minimum of 1900 hrs for an A@P vs 200 hrs for a dispatcher. I know because I have both. In addition dispatchers most of which are in CASS can jumpseat on other airlines just like the pilots do while we mechanics cannot except for our own airlines and only a few of those allow mechanics that privilege. I have often thought of getting out of the maintenance side of things because we have always been treated like a red headed bastard step child of aviation regardless of airline and I think we ourselves are a big reason why. We are more diverse as a group than ANY other group in aviation. From the line guy who troubleshoots live flights in all kinds of weather to non-licenced guys who work in some back shops who rebuild the same widget everyday and everything in between. Whereas pilots and dispatchers their job is pretty straight forward they have to deal with weather but the basic job is the same for everyone and all have to be licensed where all mechanics do not.
Gate agents, ticket agents and reservation agents vote "No"
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Half as long Bob?..Try 1/10th the training. It takes a minimum of 1900 hrs for an A@P vs 200 hrs for a dispatcher. I know because I have both. In addition dispatchers most of which are in CASS can jumpseat on other airlines just like the pilots do while we mechanics cannot except for our own airlines and only a few of those allow mechanics that privilege. I have often thought of getting out of the maintenance side of things because we have always been treated like a red headed bastard step child of aviation regardless of airline and I think we ourselves are a big reason why. We are more diverse as a group than ANY other group in aviation. From the line guy who troubleshoots live flights in all kinds of weather to non-licenced guys who work in some back shops who rebuild the same widget everyday and everything in between. Whereas pilots and dispatchers their job is pretty straight forward they have to deal with weather but the basic job is the same for everyone and all have to be licensed where all mechanics do not.
Kev3188
Veteran
Maybe the better question is why you're so "pro" Anderson, especially since most of what you've noted has been the work of Halter or Hauenstein.
People are answering the question you asked, but you don't seem to want to hear the answer. Responding with metrics makes for an interesting read, but again, in this context, it's not relevant.
When you reach full retirement age, they take half of what you earn from SS off your pension (the "offset"). For example, say you earn $1500/mo. from Social Security in addition to your pension from DL. DL takes $750 off of your monthly pension benefit.
The most telling statement here is the last sentence; the climate of fear is alive and well at DL. I'm sure the usual apologists will be along shortly to deny that, but in my experience, it's been 100% true. Sad, really.
AMT vs. AMT, ramper vs. ramper, F/A vs F/A, line vs. hub, line mtx vs OH, etc....we're all our own worst enemies... 🙁
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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Bob,
where did DL ever make the PROMISE that they would never lay off full-time people? I've followed DL for almost 35 years and what they did do that changed the industry was that they did not lay FT off people after the PATCO strike - and in return the employees bought them the Spirit of Delta.
I will also be the first to admit that whatever spirit might have existed in 1980 evaporated soon after Ron Allen announced his Leadership 7.5 initiative which was largely targeted at eliminating DL ramp employees at most smaller and medium sized station - a move that did more to destroy the Delta family spirit than anything that has been done since. There were cost cutting moves in other departments that had parallels in other industries but nothing to the same degree or scale targeted a single employee group as much as L7.5 did at DL - until the AMFA/NW conflict.
DL people have largely moved past 7.5 though and do not consider it the stumbling block to employee-employer relationships today that it once was.
The pilots do make more money (relative to their peers which I presume you consider to be the valid comparison) but remember that DL approached them before the merger closed in order to obtain an agreement and paid them based on the merger agreement they reached. I also submit that DL decided early on that DL was willing to accept a union in Flight Ops but not in the other large work groups that had been non-union before and that is why they felt the need to have the pilots' agreement for the merger but didn't seek it w/ any other group... and whether you agree with their philosophy, they were right in that the merger has largely not been affected by the labor status of the other groups.
I couldn't agree with you more about the WN comparision... because as I have used w/ AA and other airline airlines, the best way to get WN salaries is to have a company that delivers consistent profitability and believes that their employees are part of the reason for that success and should share in it. Remember that DL for years was once one of the best run and profitable airlines in the industry and that is a large reason why DL employees did as well as they did. CO took the same philosophy to engage their employees in rebuilding the company in the 90s (even though CO employees on average made a whole lot less because the company was in a high-growth (lots of new hires) mode w/ lots of rebuilding of slashed pension benefits. WN has made employee rewards a key part of the company's success since the beginning.
Kev,
A CEO's job is NOT to run every aspect of the company but to have a team of people who are capable of doing their jobs well. You are absolutely right that Finance and Network have driven much of DL's post BK success but Anderson has been smart enough to let his talented people do what they do well. It's also worth noting that DL's strongest leaders didn't come from NW but represent a broad cross-section of experience from throughout business and industy; any organization that becomes inbred will not be strong.
OTOH, I still have to ask what Anderson has done to NOT run the company well. I totally understand your distrust for Anderson based on what he did at NW but I haven't heard what he has done at DL to say that he hasn't done his job there as good as or better than any other network airline CEO in the same period.
Metrics are the way to compare people/organizations/projects.... whether I use metrics for DL vs the industry or any other comparison, it is still valid. If the argument is a non-measurable quality such as trust, then we can agree that does not merit the same consideration. If you then measure trust by all DL employees, (PMDL and PMNW), then you do take a qualitative measure and quantify its significance based on how well that trust or lack of it matters to the employee group as a whole - because not all DL people see Anderson the way you do.
But if the real issue is that people don't like who Anderson is because of he who was at NW, then you shouldn't be surprised if PMDL people don't agree with you if they aren't experiencing the same thing.
I don't doubt that your perceptions about your first two years at DL are exclusively yours but based on how the merger has progressed, most people don't agree - or perhaps like you they are professional enough to do their jobs very well even if they don't fully agree with what is happening around them.
As for the SS offset, DL will say that they provide a greater total retirement benefit because they use a SS offset.... I won't argue with any benefit or compensation related discussions other than to say that DL will argue that what they provide is competitive if not superior to other benefits including those that do not use offsets.
I have never said that DL is perfect but that DL has done things uniquely different from the rest of the industry - and DL employees have been as jealous at guarding what they have as PMNW people have been in trying to bring their own culture to DL.
As I have noted before, though, I believe DL made a very calculated (yes statistically driven) analysis of how big of a company they could acquire and how many PMDL people they needed to maintain their culture... and they (to your dismay) were right.
I genuinely hope the day will arrive soon when you are comfortable at DL in just the same way that many PM Pan Am, Western, and NE people became after their own mergers/acquisitions.
thanks for the engaging discussion. 🙂
where did DL ever make the PROMISE that they would never lay off full-time people? I've followed DL for almost 35 years and what they did do that changed the industry was that they did not lay FT off people after the PATCO strike - and in return the employees bought them the Spirit of Delta.
I will also be the first to admit that whatever spirit might have existed in 1980 evaporated soon after Ron Allen announced his Leadership 7.5 initiative which was largely targeted at eliminating DL ramp employees at most smaller and medium sized station - a move that did more to destroy the Delta family spirit than anything that has been done since. There were cost cutting moves in other departments that had parallels in other industries but nothing to the same degree or scale targeted a single employee group as much as L7.5 did at DL - until the AMFA/NW conflict.
DL people have largely moved past 7.5 though and do not consider it the stumbling block to employee-employer relationships today that it once was.
The pilots do make more money (relative to their peers which I presume you consider to be the valid comparison) but remember that DL approached them before the merger closed in order to obtain an agreement and paid them based on the merger agreement they reached. I also submit that DL decided early on that DL was willing to accept a union in Flight Ops but not in the other large work groups that had been non-union before and that is why they felt the need to have the pilots' agreement for the merger but didn't seek it w/ any other group... and whether you agree with their philosophy, they were right in that the merger has largely not been affected by the labor status of the other groups.
I couldn't agree with you more about the WN comparision... because as I have used w/ AA and other airline airlines, the best way to get WN salaries is to have a company that delivers consistent profitability and believes that their employees are part of the reason for that success and should share in it. Remember that DL for years was once one of the best run and profitable airlines in the industry and that is a large reason why DL employees did as well as they did. CO took the same philosophy to engage their employees in rebuilding the company in the 90s (even though CO employees on average made a whole lot less because the company was in a high-growth (lots of new hires) mode w/ lots of rebuilding of slashed pension benefits. WN has made employee rewards a key part of the company's success since the beginning.
Kev,
A CEO's job is NOT to run every aspect of the company but to have a team of people who are capable of doing their jobs well. You are absolutely right that Finance and Network have driven much of DL's post BK success but Anderson has been smart enough to let his talented people do what they do well. It's also worth noting that DL's strongest leaders didn't come from NW but represent a broad cross-section of experience from throughout business and industy; any organization that becomes inbred will not be strong.
OTOH, I still have to ask what Anderson has done to NOT run the company well. I totally understand your distrust for Anderson based on what he did at NW but I haven't heard what he has done at DL to say that he hasn't done his job there as good as or better than any other network airline CEO in the same period.
Metrics are the way to compare people/organizations/projects.... whether I use metrics for DL vs the industry or any other comparison, it is still valid. If the argument is a non-measurable quality such as trust, then we can agree that does not merit the same consideration. If you then measure trust by all DL employees, (PMDL and PMNW), then you do take a qualitative measure and quantify its significance based on how well that trust or lack of it matters to the employee group as a whole - because not all DL people see Anderson the way you do.
But if the real issue is that people don't like who Anderson is because of he who was at NW, then you shouldn't be surprised if PMDL people don't agree with you if they aren't experiencing the same thing.
I don't doubt that your perceptions about your first two years at DL are exclusively yours but based on how the merger has progressed, most people don't agree - or perhaps like you they are professional enough to do their jobs very well even if they don't fully agree with what is happening around them.
As for the SS offset, DL will say that they provide a greater total retirement benefit because they use a SS offset.... I won't argue with any benefit or compensation related discussions other than to say that DL will argue that what they provide is competitive if not superior to other benefits including those that do not use offsets.
I have never said that DL is perfect but that DL has done things uniquely different from the rest of the industry - and DL employees have been as jealous at guarding what they have as PMNW people have been in trying to bring their own culture to DL.
As I have noted before, though, I believe DL made a very calculated (yes statistically driven) analysis of how big of a company they could acquire and how many PMDL people they needed to maintain their culture... and they (to your dismay) were right.
I genuinely hope the day will arrive soon when you are comfortable at DL in just the same way that many PM Pan Am, Western, and NE people became after their own mergers/acquisitions.
thanks for the engaging discussion. 🙂
