DL Capt uniform on Ebay Options

[SF3aviatrix]

Coat was for sale on eBay. Looks like its been yanked for security reasons. The links are dead but the comments are worth the read...

Delta Air Line Captain Pilot Uniform Authentic Original
Item number: 7717075998 for Sale by b777md11

AUTHENTIC Delta Air Lines Captain Pilot Uniform

This uniform was worn by a dedicated Delta Pilot for many years. Now retired and robbed of part, or all, of promised pension, uniform is now offered for sale to supplement income.

Suit is worn and empty but filled with memories and honor. Suit has been across many miles and many experiences. Suit was once filled with pride and service getting thousands of passengers to their destination safely. Suit has been through rain, snow, ice, and wind without a single tear or scratch. Suit once controlled multi-million dollar assets, flown throughout the world, with billions of dollars of liability to the company. Suit has never cost company one (1) cent in accident or injury.

Although the suit is worn and has been discarded by the company, it can be yours. Suit is clean but used. Coat may be soiled from hydraulic fluid or grease as plane was inspected. Shirt may be soiled from mad dashes through the airport in a rush to the next plane in an effort to get back on schedule. Tie may have stains from fast food meals that were hurriedly eaten while at the controls. Tie comes with you choice of pins, Air Line Pilots Association, Air Force, or Airplane. Pants may show signs of wear from may hours spent strapped into a seat, hip shows some signs of wear from firearm used to protect you and your passengers from harm. Shoes are shiny but worn. Suit comes with choice of Old Delta or New Delta emblems. Many prefer the Old Delta.

Suit is thought by many to have APHRODISIAC qualities, although this cannot be confirmed or denied.

BEWARE putting on this suit can have adverse effects on you life. It can cause you to miss you childrens birth. It can cause you to miss holiday reunions, family times, and weekends. You may miss your Daughters prom and your Sons graduation. Your family may think Christmas is not always on December 25th. Your wife will have to learn to be a single parent when you are gone for days. The suit can cause you to miss entire nights of sleep or get up at 3 AM to meet your next schedule. Your neighbors may be jealous of you and think you do not deserve to wear the uniform or be compensated for your work.

Originally suit required a four year college degree and an internship of 5-10 years in the military, and another 10-15 years for the fourth stripe. Suit comes with a promise of a pension if you provide years of dedication and service. THE PROMISE MAY BE AS EMPTY AS THE SUIT. Now it can be had for the highest bid. Good Luck bidding.

[Fluffdoc]

Sad.

[Crashman]

This makes the Crashman angry... angry enough to rant! Crashman's uncle was a 747 driver for Eastern, who retired before the airline industry - and his airline - fell upon these sad days. Crashman asks:

Why do we so dishonor this group of essential, highly skilled people, so necessary to the modern world? Why are their unions the object of so much management pressure? Why are they so underpaid and overworked until they reach the very top level - which few do? Why do they always have to fight for enforcement of the most basic safety rules, like on-duty hours restrictions and safe MELs? Why do they now always have to pay from their own pocket for their training? Why are things arranged so that even a young person totally in love with flying now gulps and thinks twice before setting out to be a pro? And usually has to give up somewhere along the line, just to make a decent living and feed a family?

Because nobody cares? Airlines have made flying the worldwide most preferred mode of transport and made its price within the reach of everyone - to the point where it is unusual now to find anyone who hasn't flown somewhere (this was NOT true as recently as 30-40 years ago). And we STILL have no regard for these first-line soldiers of aviation, who put it on the line - literally! - every single day? Who hold thousands of human lives in their hands every month? Not even doctors do that - and Drs. get to bury their mistakes. Anything goes wrong with a flight, and U betcha where the groundhogs' finger will first point!

Crashman says: You will NEVER KNOW how many line pilots have earned 30 years of pay in 30 seconds - and never made the newspapers or even an incident report. You will NEVER KNOW how many lives have been saved because some fine Captain somewhere looked at the mets, took the hardest road, and said: "Sorry- today, this flight is cancelled." You will NEVER KNOW how many disasters have been averted because somebody with years of training and thousands of hours looked at a MEL, at a Wx report, at a shaky gauge indication, at some frost on the wing - and did the right thing even when the Company punished him/her for it. And to hear tales like that Delta Captain's - YAAAAGHHHHGGGH! (mods have to take Crashman away, struggling and frothing at the mouth, and calm him down by giving him some NTSB reports to read.)

OK, ok.. Crashman is better now. And would like to thank the real Big Iron pros on here (not just airlines, all commercial pilots) who - despite their difficult, underpaid lives - are still here taking their valuable time hangar-talkin' for us so we can learn, and encouraging the youngsters- while giving them no illusions. We all know what it is to love flying - Crashman remembers practicing aerobatics from a book at age 7 using a yardstick and a pair of flipped-over sandals for rudder pedals - but something is very wrong with this picture....

[Fluffdoc]

OK, I know I'm going to get crucified for this, but I have to present the other side of this issue.

First of all, I have a problem with people and professions who have an overinflated impression of their importance to the world. The membership in the category is long and distinguished - lawyers, politicians, rock stars, actors, doctors, teachers, and yes, pilots. These professions have a lot of things in common - difficult to get into, rigorous training, and stress for example. But a lot of other jobs (such as a Marine patrolling a street in Iraq) have the same features - and more. For everyone of us out there who think they are "special" there are probably ten others waiting to take our place who could do our job as well or maybe better than us.

It really amazes me that people bust their buns for years to get hired by a major then ten minutes after they are on the payroll start complaining about pay, schedules, or anything else than comes to mind. You think your working conditions suck? Try changing a number 2 engine on a DC-10 in the dark in a cold rain. Or replacing a toilet tank dump valve. Yes, pilots are responsible for a lot of lives. So are mechanics. If you don't like your working conditions maybe you should have picked another profession.

The major reason that airline pilots' life "sucks" is that the airline industry is fighting for its life. Like it or not, the industry has undergone a major transformation that neither the airlines or unions can stop. The old way of doing business is forever gone. The chain of events was started by the low-cost airlines like Southwest and Jet Blue and will continue until the majors either find a way to compete or go completely out of business. And who knows, maybe in 20 years or so Southwest and Jet Blue could be in the same situation that Delta is in today because there are more new upstarts out there who have found a way to operate even more cheaply. Those long-gone great names in the industry such as Braniff, Pan Am, and Eastern disappeared because they didn't adapt.

Airline management has played a big role in the current situation - bad management, buying too many airplanes, too many mergers, and paying people (including themselves) more than what the business environment can bear. But the unions have some blame here too - demanding a pay raise just so you can be the highest paid pilots in the industry (hello, Delta) was silly. You can't defy the law of gravity for long and the same goes for the laws of economics. The indsutry can't sustain the compenstation packages granted during boom times and must compensate to avoid complete liquidation. It may not be fair, or right, or just, but that's what we all will have to deal with.

[velocityflier16]

Fluffdoc, if we had a respected user list, you would be number one. absolutely stunning post!
C o R y

[Crashman]

Very good points indeed, Fluff. Crashman guesses that what POs him the most about the situation in the end, is the corporate lying and cheating that defrauds these people out of the pension they thought they were working for all those years. Bit unfair and dishonest, no? Of course, a legal/regulatory system that allows this is also culpable. What happened to the pension funds that were supposed to be put aside for this? Who has them now?