It Isn’t Money That Trickles Downhill…

Delta Air Lines reported second quarter 2022 profits of $1.4-billion and stated that it’s poised to return to 2019 levels of record profitability. Delta management also posited that neither the difficulties confronting the airline industry, nor the overall gloomy, world economic forecast were likely to adversely affect the airline’s profitability. The optimistic sentiment belied the fact that Delta’s pilots—represented by the Airline Pilots Association International (ALPA)—are currently in negotiations for a new employment contract.

Delta ALPA Master Executive Council chair Capt. Jason Ambrosi states: “Since the pilots’ last contract, Delta has invested billions in foreign airlines, subsidiaries, and stock buyback schemes. It’s now time for them to properly invest in the pilots.”

After a nearly two-year, pandemic-induced hiatus, pilot contract negotiations resumed in January with old contentions over workplace mores, quality of life, job security, salary, benefits, and retirement plans flaring quickly into informational picketing and widespread pilot disgruntlement.

“Delta pilots played an instrumental role in helping our airline regain profitability,” Capt. Ambrosi asserted. ‘We have continued to display frontline leadership to help the operation and are on pace to have flown as many overtime hours in the first three quarters of 2022 as in all of 2018 and 2019 combined. Delta pilots continue to sacrifice time away from our homes and families to help ensure the financial success of Delta Air Lines. It has been more than six-years since the Delta pilots’ last contract was signed, three-plus years since we have had a pay raise, and more than two-years since our contract became amendable. As long-term stakeholders, Delta pilots have earned an industry-leading contract reflective of the hard work and our continued commitment to ensuring Delta’s long-term success.”

In the spring of 2022, Delta CEO Ed Bastian—despite repeated warnings to the contrary by ALPA—apocryphally stated that his airline was properly staffed for the summer flying season. Bastian’s misfeasance occasioned egregious and extensive flight delays, cancellations, and invoked the collective wrath of Delta passengers.

In response to their boss’s blunder, Delta pilots sent a letter to the airline’s Board of Directors expressing their concerns about the company’s Flight Operations management and submitting a vote of “no confidence” therein. The pilots subsequently published an open letter to Delta’s customers in which they shared their frustrations about the deterioration of the Delta brand.

Delta management, in turn, addressed their pilots’ and ALPA’s concerns by reducing capacity in the carrier’s July flight schedule. Bastian publicly conceded he’d erred, stating: “We pushed too hard. We scaled back a bit … and in July, we’re running a great operation.”

In June 2022, Delta pilots undertook a nationwide campaign of informational picket during which they indelibly impressed upon management that it was high-time for a new contract. ALPA has concurrently demanded that Delta engage seriously at the bargaining-table and resign itself to delivering an industry-leading contract.

Capt. Ambrosi concurs with ALPA, insisting: “We have been Delta’s frontline leaders throughout the pandemic and now through the recovery. For years, we have been pushed to our limits to help our airline emerge from the pandemic, and we have more than earned an industry-leading contract reflective of these efforts. Management needs to get serious at the negotiating table. It’s past time to deliver an industry-leading contract to the Delta pilots.”

Founded in 1931 and representing more than 65,000 pilots at forty U.S. and Canadian airlines, ALPA is the world’s largest and arguably most powerful pilot union.

FMI: www.alpa.org, www.delta.com