Any news on Delta strike?

phuang

Earning My Ears
Joined
May 12, 2004
Messages
55
Hi!

Does anyone have any news regarding the impending Delta pilot strike? I am travelling SFO to MCO via Delta on APril 20..need info please.

Thanks!
 
Hey, I'll be flying Delta to MCO on April 20th also! Hopefully....
 
Look at last page of thread that says Pilots march thru Atlanta airport. You will get current information there.
 
This is from this mornings Cincinnati Enquirer...


ATLANTA - As Delta Air Lines Inc. pilots were preparing to wrap up a strike authorization vote, a bankruptcy court judge Monday gave the company permission to void millions of stock options.

The pilot votes were to be tallied after polling closes at midmorning today. If approved, union leaders would be able to set a strike date, but that doesn't mean a strike would necessarily be imminent.

The pilots union has said it will strike if its contract is voided. An arbitration panel must decide on the company's contract rejection request by April 15.
 

Strike vote will be tallied today (deadline for pilots to vote mid-morning). If they vote to strike, the Union can then set a potential strike date. I am fully expecting that they will vote to strike. Though, they still have two weeks to negotiate before the court has the option to throw out the pilots contracts. Their voting to strike doesn't mean they will, doesn't mean the court will let them, doesn't mean the government will let them (technically, it's illegal for them to strike while the company is in ch. 11 and the government has intervened in other airline strikes when they thought they would cause a significant negative impact tot he economy).

Fingers crossed with all of you-we're booked from BUF to MCO April 25th.
 
I have read if the court throws out their contract then they can strike without it being illegal because they don't have a contract anymore so the Railroad Act wouldn't pertain to them.
 
Nothing we can do either way except cross fingers, pray, wish, will, hope......

I have non-refundable tix so I can do absolutely nothing until my actual flight date and time. I'm curious as to when they set the strike date, though! From what I've read it's supposed to be 30 days after negotiations are considered completely broken off. It doesn't seem like that's the case yet. Even if they set it 30 days from today, I would be okay-but others wouldn't. After all this anxiety, I don't want anyone's family vacations ruined by a strike. I'm hoping and praying that either Delta or the pilots see the sense in avoiding a strike and save us all so we can all go to Disney without anxiety!

I know many people are saying, 'don't worry, they'll settle' but I'm type A and not knowing and not being organized is killing me!
 
/
I have read if the court throws out their contract then they can strike without it being illegal because they don't have a contract anymore so the Railroad Act wouldn't pertain to them.
Yeah, the United pilots tried to play that game too. Didn't work for them either.
 
It is expected that this strike would last only two days, after which the airline would cease operations and go out of business permanently.
 
Great :scared: - We are flying 5/25 for our 5/27 DCL Cruise. I am such a worrier when it comes to stuff like this. Fingers and toes are crossed here so that they don't strike and we can all enjoy a stress free vacation.
 
Really long but good info.

Planning for airline strike
Fliers worry, but experts say: Continue as normal
BY JAMES PILCHER | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
So what's a passenger to do?

Labor disruptions are possible at both Delta Air Lines and Comair - the two primary airlines at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. And those potential problems could occur around the Easter holiday - and in the middle of spring breaks at many schools.

Delta is trying to get its pilots union to take $300 million in cuts a year, while Comair is fighting in bankruptcy court for $8.9 million worth of concessions annually from its flight attendants union.


Hearings on the Comair case begin Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The judge overseeing the Erlanger-based airline's restructuring has until April 10 to render a decision, although he could delay that deadline. Friday, the airline's flight attendants gave their union leaders the ability to call a strike if their contract is rejected.

Similarly, the Delta pilots are conducting their own strike authorization vote, with the results due on April 4.

The panel overseeing that case is supposed to decide whether Delta can reject the contract by April 15, the day before Easter Sunday, and the pilots union has said it will strike if its contract is rejected.

Some potential fliers have already decided on a course of action, booking flights on airlines other than Delta, according to several local travel agents and even Delta Air Lines' chief executive officer.

"We are seeing a lot of book-off," said Don Freeland, owner of the Travel Store, a Forest Park-based travel agency. He says he can't advise people not to fly on Delta, but says travelers do have the option of traveling to one of five airports within a two-hour drive of Cincinnati.

For those who already have tickets on Delta and/or Comair, there is some hope.

Many experts say that if Comair were to go on strike, parent Delta would pull in other regional carriers to replace those routes. And other airlines would probably boost capacity to make up for the loss of Delta seats in case of a pilot strike.

It's not too late to buy travel insurance against a Delta strike, but the authorization Friday of a strike by the Comair flight attendants makes a possible work action there a known risk and therefore uninsurable by such agencies.

Terry Trippler, an airline expert for the online travel agency CheapSeats.com, said travelers could pay $50 per leg to switch to another airline.

Another option is to hold on to the existing ticket for later use - if either airline survives a work stoppage.

"But let's be totally honest - every seat on every plane on the other airlines could be totally empty and it still wouldn't fill the demand for Delta passengers in Cincinnati," Trippler said. "If there is a Delta strike, there will be a lot of people in Cincinnati who won't get where they were going, and equally so, people trying to get home to Cincinnati are going to have a devil of a time."

WHAT THE AIRLINES SAY

Delta officials said no changes have been planned so far, and passengers should continue as normal.

Even Delta pilot union chairman Lee Moak said that while the union will strike if its contract is rejected, he doesn't expect that to happen.

"What passengers should do in mid-April is to fly Delta Air Lines," said Moak, a Boeing 767 captain, in an interview last week. "I believe reasonable members of senior management will take control of this situation and we will get a settlement."

Delta spokesman Bruce Hicks said no contingency plans are in place, because essentially a full-blown walkout would kill the company. "Our creditors could pull all our debt in 24 hours if we stopped operating," Hicks said.

Comair and its flight attendant union also say booking a trip on the Erlanger-based regional carrier is relatively safe as well. "It's a little early to start worrying about your flight," said Slayback. "We don't want to go on strike, but we will if we are forced to."

Airline spokeswoman Kate Moser said a strike "would devastate our company."

"But we intend to take appropriate operational and legal measures to protect our flights and our customers," she said. "We're preparing for a number of scenarios. ... You can book on Comair with confidence."

She declined comment on specifics, such as whether the airline was considering bringing in replacement workers or using management to keep planes flying. That option is more likely at Comair than at Delta because flight attendants do not need nearly as much training as a pilot to become certified.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN

Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo., said Delta could bring in other members of its regional network to replace Comair flying.

"Parking Comair would not be a lethal blow to Delta in Cincinnati - they could just bring others in," he said.

Besides Comair, Delta's contracted feeder airlines include Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Comair's former sister regional airline that Delta sold off last fall to another contractor SkyWest; Republic Airways subsidiaries Chautauqua Airlines; and Shuttle America; and Mesa-owned Freedom Airlines.

Boyd said that's what happened with United Airlines in its Washington hub in 2004 when contractor Atlantic Coast Airways decided to morph into a now-defunct low-cost carrier called Independence Air.

"United didn't miss a beat when Atlantic pulled 80 jets right out from under them," he said, noting other contractors filled the void in Washington as Atlantic Coast became a competitor. Independence Air filed bankruptcy last year and ceased operations altogether this year.

Delta chose not to bring in such carriers during the Comair pilot strike of 2001, however, but that was because other pilots said they would not fly Comair's routes - a concept called "struck work."

Freeland expects that other major carriers would add flights and possibly even new destinations to help pick up the slack, but there would be major drop-offs in the number of cities served and number of flights out of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. And most airlines have already cut back on capacity; meaning planes are already pretty full. "It's still going to be a tight fit out of Cincinnati, so a Dayton or Louisville could be an option as well," Freeland said.
 
bicker said:
Yeah, the United pilots tried to play that game too. Didn't work for them either.

I thought this particular situation hadn't happened before.

Thought that the closest it came was with Hawaian Air and that it wasn't put to the test because the Pilots union proposal was deemed the most acceptable.

Usually contracts stay in force but are amendable. Here one side is trying to void the contract and impose a new one.



.
 
It is expected that this strike would last only two days, after which the airline would cease operations and go out of business permanently.

Who expects this? I admit I have no personal knowledge of the Delta situation, but this scenario sounds extremely unlikely to me. If the pilots actually do go on strike, I expect they will be ordered back to work by a Federal judge. They government will not allow the hit to the economy that this would cause. Delta is one of the major airlines feeding Atlanta, Orlando, and I presume many other cities. The government will not allow this all to come to a grinding halt.
 
So can the gov "force" the pilots to stay on and work? I have no knowledge of anything, I just hope that we are able to make our trip in June!
 
I thought this particular situation hadn't happened before.
In the case of United, the pilots accepted a negotiated new contract when it became clear that the judge was going to rule against them and void the contract. In the case of US Airways, the judge voided the contract and imposed one of his own on the pilots.

So can the gov "force" the pilots to stay on and work?
Only for 30 days.
 
bicker said:
In the case of United, the pilots accepted a negotiated new contract when it became clear that the judge was going to rule against them and void the contract. In the case of US Airways, the judge voided the contract and imposed one of his own on the pilots.

Only for 30 days.

Yep, it's that ole 30 days that worries me. It would be just my luck that something bad will happen with Delta....and I apologize to everyone that is flying at the same time I am...I am usually the one with the bad luck and everyone around me suffers. I fly to Orlando on May 15....now I'm thinking dh and dd are going to be happier..they fly on JB the following day. But, my brain tells me that we will all be fine..it's just my emotional side that is flipping around like crazy at the moment. :crazy:
 














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