Those five or six years (and

sometimes much more) were hardly filled with pleasure cruises. They pay

we received while protecting the freedom of such idiots as your writer

was not quite "fair" compensation for the job performed. So

much for your writer's "free lunch" depiction.

As for contractual items in

past Delta pilot contracts, he/she doesn't have a clue about them. Unless

Delta management has been incredibly stupid over the 30 years of my career,

they seemed to think that we were worth whatever we were able to negotiate.

The bottom line is that it is our skills, responsibilities, and qualifications,

not our personalities or worth as individual human beings, that commands

the salaries and benefits that we enjoy.

Instead of whining and spewing

hate-filled rhetoric, may I suggest that the writer quit their job (if

they are employed), take flying lessons, get their commercial, instrument,

multi-engine, and airline transport pilot qualifications, then fly for

a commuter for a few years to build up the experience required and then

compete for the relatively small number of positions at a major airline.

After all, it can't be that difficult to fly a plane full of passengers

and crew across the Atlantic in the middle of the night, can it?

I don't know who this person

is, or what their motivation is, but I would be willing to bet that they

would think nothing of paying $50 or $60 to go watch some 20-something

kid throw a basketball through a hoop, or would write such a flaming letter

to the editor about him and his multimillion dollar salary.

He may not have the cajones

to sign his name , but I sure as hell do.

Bob Lawrence

Captain, Delta Air Lines,

retired