The Delta pilots are approaching two significant milestones: two-and-a-half years since our contract became amendable and three-and-a-half years since our last pay raise. Next Thursday, June 30, we will be visibly displaying our unity with picketing at every pilot base. Your participation in this event helps provide the Negotiating Committee with the additional leverage they need at the bargaining table to achieve our contractual goals. Our message is clearly resonating with management, the traveling public, media and our fellow employees. Now is the time to stand up and let management know that our voices will only get louder and more unified as the summer wears on.

Next week’s picket is one of several decisive actions the MEC is undertaking as Section 6 negotiations drag on and our frustration grows over management’s unwillingness to get serious at the bargaining table. At the June MEC Meeting, we spent considerable time discussing pilot sentiment – collected via polling and through your direct feedback – and the importance of putting the Company on notice that its 13,900 pilots are angry, disappointed and frustrated by daily operational meltdowns and empty promises that don’t translate into meaningful action or change.

Your elected representatives have never been more unified and will continue to hold management accountable, ensuring we are treated with the respect we’ve earned as frontline leaders. In an unprecedented display of resolve, the MEC took the following steps at our June MEC meeting:

• Vote of No Confidence: As detailed in its Statement of Unity, the MEC unanimously passed a resolution of No Confidence in the management teams of Flight Operations, Crew Resources, and Flight Training & Standards. ALPA has warned Delta that the operational reliability it touts, and that allows the airline to charge a revenue premium, is at risk. A myriad of missteps and poor decisions now threatens the Delta brand. Meanwhile, the operation, as well as pilots’ quality of lives, continue to deteriorate on the line. Additionally, the Training Department is still struggling to staff the operation properly by getting pilots through the training backlog – many of whom have been sitting on the sidelines for months waiting for IQ, OE or to return from UNA status.
   
• Letter to Delta Board of Directors: The buck stops at the top. The MEC sent a letter to the Delta Board of Directors outlining our concerns, which was distributed during the June 16 Annual Shareholders meeting in New York. Last Thursday, dozens of pilots participated in informational picketing outside of the shareholder meeting location. Delta executives and board members saw firsthand that we are communicating our frustration directly to the traveling public and media about Delta’s poor decisions.
   
• Open Letter to Customers: Your MEC took the unprecedented step of placing full page ads in the Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Journal Constitution on the morning of June 16. On the heels of our successful and highly publicized picketing in March and April, we continue to see our customers stranded, delayed and with their travel plans ruined due to foreseeable circumstances. It’s bad business and a stain on the Delta brand. To our customers we say – safety first on every flight, every day. The media also picked up on our message – which was carried on major networks including NBC News and CNN in addition to local coverage nationwide.
   
• Vote of Support for Association of Flight Attendants (AFA): We invited AFA President Sara Nelson to attend our June meeting to receive an update on the AFA’s organizing efforts at Delta, which is gaining momentum. The MEC subsequently unanimously approved a resolution supporting the AFA’s organizing drive for Delta flight attendants. We, as the largest organized workforce at Delta, are proud union members. We know that what we negotiate, like Profit Sharing, is often bestowed on our fellow employees to keep their unionization efforts at bay. In fact, in response to our bargaining proposals, the Company has frequently told the Negotiating Committee that Delta must provide the same benefits we seek for pilots to flight attendants. While the Negotiating Committee repeatedly pushes back on this misplaced notion, a collective bargaining agent for flight attendants would stop this management tactic in its tracks. With the AFA on Delta’s property, the flight attendants can bargain for themselves and management can stop attempting to charge pilots for the costs of providing our hard-bargained contractual gains to other employee groups.

The Summer Ahead

As your union takes decisive steps to bring our overdue negotiations to a successful conclusion, we need everyone to begin preparing for the end game. Both the United and UPS pilot groups have reached agreements with their managements. While details are yet to be released, it’s past time for Delta management to roll up their sleeves and get serious at the bargaining table with an industry-leading contract we have earned and that includes all four pillars: Compensation, Scope, Retirement and Quality of Life – without any concessions. Any further delay only increases the amount of retro payment. If Delta can spend billions on foreign airlines and subsidiaries while still in the pandemic, then there certainly is no excuse for not making a significant investment in the Delta pilots during the recovery.

To that end, the MEC has opened our Strike Center. Your SPSC rallied the pilot group with overwhelming turnouts at picketing events – and will be equally prepared to start staffing the Strike Center so your questions and concerns are addressed as we prepare for all actions permitted under the Railway Labor Act.

You will be receiving educational pieces on the Railway Labor Act (RLA) and what is permitted during mediation and, should we reach an impasse and exhaust the RLA process, what happens if self-help is needed. An Engage podcast featuring interviews with our legal experts will be part of this series. I also ask that each of you begin your strike fund if you have not already done so. Give yourself and your family the peace of mind that we are willing to do what it takes to get the contract we deserve. Management needs to understand we are serious – and will use the provisions of the RLA to its full extent -- to secure an industry-leading contract.

Finally, even as we focus on our stalled contract negotiations, the Negotiating Committee is concurrently working on the language for the Global Scope Agreement in Principle (AIP) – an important step forward in protecting our jobs. You’ll be receiving much more information on the AIP once the language is finalized between the parties and a Tentative Agreement is reached. Just as we do every day in the cockpit, please compartmentalize this AIP and review the agreement on its own merits when the time comes.

I am looking forward to standing in solidarity with hundreds of my Delta pilot brothers and sisters on the picket line next Thursday, June 30. Again, your participation moves the needle for our Negotiating Committee at the bargaining table. Please RSVP if you can join us. We’ll be heading into the busy Independence Day holiday weekend and our fellow employees, customers, management and Wall Street will be watching our show of solidarity.