Has anyone heard specific details as to when a date could be for a pending strike if that's what they choose? We are going to Florida this coming Monday, the 10th and returning the 17th. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Austria, if you go to the Airline Forum on Fodor's you will see a thread that has a lot of information. Info was taken from Yahoo..so you can also use their search to get uptodate information. Best wishes..sure hope this Delta labor/financial problem gets worked out.

Thanks Italy...I have done searches as well. Hey...love Italy as well! We there this past summer when we went to Europe...Venice to be exact. Hope to get to Tuscany soon.

Hey Austria, I am jealouse!!!! I was planning on returning to Italy last year but my Rome born & bred SIL had big family emergencies in Rome so he and my daughter went there for the month of June while I ended up staying home with grandson's etc. Sob!!!

You will absolutely love Tuscany I am sure. Best wishes with your plans. And I sure hope your Florida trip doesn't get messed up. Take care.

We were in Austria visiting my aunt. We loved Venice and hope to very soon visit Tuscany....I am planning on learning some Italian to it's a bit easier. I hope and pray our visit is soon, but nothing planned so far For not, Disney will have to do! LOL

Per article on today's CNN,
"Delta pilots voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, however no date was set for a walkout."

Here's full story,
http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/04/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Thank you Tess for sending the link. I hadn't read that particular one. I hope for all that this gets resolved quickly!! I haven't read any potential date in anything I've read other than a April 15th deadline. Seems to be a universal dealine date! lol

TTT

The strike threat by Delta pilots is thought to be part of a game of chicken that is going on between the pilots and management. The idea is to see which one backs down first.

Many suspect that although the public posturing presages a murder-suicide scenario, it is not the true position of either side. Delta pilots may be wanting to hold onto the highest salaries they can get, but they are not so stupid as to ignore completely what happened to Eastern Airlines.

The pilots' vote to strike is seen by some as just another bargaining ploy to respond to Delta management's comments that total bankruptcy is possible.

Most of the people around Atlanta that I talk with are not in sympathy with the pilots. I have heard quite a few comments about Delta captains and their $700,000 homes, which in the northern suburbs of Cobb County will buy with ease a new house of more than 4,000 square that is located in a plush neighborhood. Unfortunately, public opinion is not a major factor in this labor - management game of chicken.

There has also been considerable comments in the newspapers that the governor of the state, Sonny Perdue, should get involved heavily. He may have brought the Kia assembly plant to Georgia, but losing Delta will do more harm than 3 Kia plants will do good.

Right now there is no way to tell who will call whose bluff. Both sides are publically stating hardening positions.
There has been very little leaked to the press that I have seen which indicated a compromise.

As one cynic put it, if the pilots go on strike and all Delta employees are laid off, the airline will be better off: It will be losing less money!!

Some suggest that if the crisis is severe enough, the Feds will step in with a bailout. Such a move is not unprecedented. Over 20 years ago, Chrysler benefitted from over $1 billion in loans. Whether or not it will happen this time remains to be seen.

I think we wait until April 15, which as already mentioned is a day of decision.

If anybody knows what is going to happen, that information is not being printed in the public press.

Looks like "after April 17th" is the time.

News reports in today's paper say that the union bosses have ordered their pilots to remove all their flight gear from pilot lockers in preparation for a lockout by management. They gamesmanship thus continues. Regardless whether there's a lockout or a strike, whichever side hits the first blow has committed murder against the other and then suicide againsts itself. I have flown 25,000 miles on Delta in the last year but made my first of April flight the last one for a long time to come and have my next two reservations on United. You can see the drop off in the loads being carried over the last 6 weeks. People are shifting their business to other carriers out of justifiable fear of being stranded somewhere or missing a vacation altogether from this devilish murder-suicide game that Delta's managment and union is playing.

My DS and DD and I just returned from Mobile, Al on Delta. We left on March 28th the planes were full. From Mpls to Mobile they had overbooked. Coming home on April 6th the same thing planes were full. But I am glad we are back and not have to worry about what they will decide to do. I had a two hour layover in Atlanta, and all the planes going out were booked solid. Did not appear anyone was to concerned. They perhaps are now after yesterdays announcement.

This whole thing reminds me of a French duel when the two antagonists would stand back to back, walk 10 paces, turn and fire with a pistol. Seems like Hamilton got killed that way.

We are reaching a point where something has got to give. The X Factor in this game is the Federal arbitration board.
No one has leaked what its decision and rulings will be.

I fear that court orders, strikes, and other problems will take center stage before it is over.

I wish I could predict it, but there is not enough public information to enable that type of thinking. I know one thing, the economy of more than one state will suffer if Delta goes under.

There will, in time, be replacements coming along. But in Atlanta the sheer size of Delta will make full replacement slow in coming. Air Tran is the second largest carrier out of Jackson-Hartsfield Airport, but it hardly has the capacity to fill the void in a relatively short period of time.

My own travel plans are up in the air because Delta is the most convenient airline, and I am holding off on booking until this mess reaches some kind of closure one way or the other.

At some point the sabre rattling has got to quit and the fight has got to either be called off or both sides draw their weapons and start slashing.

I really lack faith in the Feds to do anything effective!

Uhhhh..you mean as when "the Feds" de-regulated the airline industry and we kept them in office anyway???????

Does anyone have any advice/experience with airline strike if yu already hold tickets??? Do other airlines honor strike tickets?
I have tickets 4/21 5/1 for my Dads 75th BDay celebration...

I hope they can come to an agreement. A good friend of mine is supposed to fly out to Spain on Saturday so either she gets stuck outbound, has difficulty returning the following week, or absolutely nothing happens.

I have a trip to Italy booked for October on Delta with FF miles so I hope that sticks. Regardless, I have not been happy with Delta's continually declining service the past years and book as many flights as possible on competing carriers. Southwest and JetBlue are two of my new favs. Fortunately I moved away from Atlanta 4 years ago and so have escaped the headlock Delta had on my travel plans.