Delta Judge Won't Recuse Herself

Wall Street Journal on line ^ | November 17, 2005 | Evan Perez

[yoe]

NEW YORK -- The federal judge overseeing the bankruptcy of Delta Air Lines rejected a request by the carrier's pilot union that she step down from the case because of comments suggesting that the pilots are paid too much.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Prudence Carter Beatty denied any antipathy toward Delta pilots, who are fighting efforts by the Atlanta-based airline to abandon the current pilot contract and slash their pay by 20%, or about $325 million a year.

[snip] Judge Beatty said union officials were misinterpreting remarks she made during hearings since Delta sought bankruptcy-court protection in September.

[snip] "I do not believe that I have a bias against the pilots," she said shortly after the start of a court hearing yesterday[[Nov. 16] where Delta urged the judge to void the pilot contract. She didn't issue a ruling on that request.

[snip] The day after Delta's bankruptcy filing, Judge Beatty told Bruce Simon, a lawyer for the Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing Delta pilots, that the airline's pilot wages were "hideously high," according to a transcript of the hearing.

[yoe]

What does a Brain Surgeon get for one operation on one person? What does this judge think a pilot who has the lives of 300+ people in his hands should be paid?

[Chode]

ping

[Dan Nunn]

Whatever the market thinks they are worth. If they are underpaid, they should be able to take their experience and knowledge to another airline who will pay the pilots what they think they are worth. Cruel, but true.

[JohnnyZ]

What does this judge think a pilot who has the lives of 300+ people in his hands should be paid?

About as much as a bus driver who has the lives of 300 people a day in his care?

[Wally_Kalbacken]

The Judge is not making some sort of absolute worth determination - she's just deciding what the debtor in possession (i.e., Delta management) can do, with the interests of creditors, bondholders and all employees considered. At Delta's present burn rate - there are no attractive solutions.

I think the incentives for the pilots group are probably skewed more in favor of striking that most people realize. Here in Atlanta the local media speaks of it as if liquidation would result in total vaporization of the former Delta and Hartsfield Jackson airport. In reality - portions of the airline would be picked up by other carriers and the valuable gates and other assets would simply go to other owners. Many of the pilots who do not have a lot of seniority might be better off taking their chances being unemployed for a while but then being picked up by a successor (Southwest?) rather than hanging on to Delta and getting what's left after hundreds of millions are consumed in legal and accounting fees in the bankruptcy process. (I say this as an Atlanta area attorney. Some of the big local firms are rather peeved that Delta let NY firms feast on the carcass.)

I'd love to see information about how many senior pilots retired early and took the cash out option on their retirement plan in the last year or two. Those who didn't are going to be in a world of hurt.

[Brilliant]

If it weren't for the fact that they are unionized, we wouldn't even have to ask the question. Let the market decide. If they don't like what Delta is paying, they can quit.

[Crawdad]

My next door neighbor is a Delta pilot. On the same day Delta filed for bankruptcy, his wife found a lump in her breast. She underwent a double mastectomy last week. Please pray for them.

[CodeToad]

"About as much as a bus driver who has the lives of 300 people a day in his care?
"

Bus driver = 6 day training class.
Pilot = 16 year training class.

[Element187]

you dont think this judge has an agenda ? naw never.

[cynicom]

Unions are unions and that union ALPA is strangling the airline industry.

[Chode]

if Pukin Dog reads this, you might get your wish... he flys for them.

[Walkingfeather]

a bit easier to stop a bus that is rolling on the ground than a plane at 300 mph at 35K ft.

[George W. Bush]

Let's see... who to cheer for: the judge who thinks they're overpaid or one of the greediest unions around?

I'll go with Her Honor on this one, I guess.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"What does this judge think a pilot who has the lives of 300+ people in his hands should be paid?"

Same as a train engineer? Maybe?

[JohnnyZ]

Bus driver = 6 day training class. Pilot = 16 year training class.

So the more training one has, the more one must be paid?

[JohnnyZ]

And what about teachers, the vastly important professionals who nurture mold young minds? Shouldn't they be paid more than basketball players? The children are our future!!!

/sarcasm

[cynicom]

16 years???? One does not even need a high school education to become rated. I suspect the years you mention would be OJT time.

[CodeToad]

"So the more training one has, the more one must be paid?
"


Unless you think your doctor should just be a medic. Training is expensive and who is going to put in the years of training and the expense just to make minimum wage?

[Brian Allen]

<< If they are underpaid, they should be able to take their experience and knowledge to another airline who will pay the pilots what they think they are worth. Cruel, but true. >>

Or have their low-bidder and quota-hired failed-bus-driver replacements fly your parents and parents-in-law and wife and children and grandchildren home for Thanksgiving through ten severe frontal systems and have to descend and approach through thunderstorms and land, one hopes, at your nearest airport.

And that you're your only family member who's not on the aircraft.

Hope they make it.

Cruel but true.

[CodeToad]

OJT. The training just for ATP will take several years, plus airlines require a college degree, and there is that pesky minimum 1,500 hours seat time, not to mention most airlines want to see 2,500 hours. And, if being a pilot was so easy a whole bunch of people wouldn't flunk out and there would be far more candidates than there are.