What announcement of what union? All they are saying is they may have a vote to try and bring one in. It's still speculative whether they will succeed or not.

Look, this whole notion of pilots' influence on companies gets overblown. We can't make or break a company (through payroll/benefit costs), we can't influence management or board decisions and these equity stake and W-2 reductions for "growth" provisions always wind up in the crapper.

That's why we should quit trying to "partner" with management at contract time and remember first and foremost that we are labor, are seen as labor, and will never be one of them (ruling class).

Diffenderffer (sp?) left due to the poor economic performance of the company. They know what the 2007 fourth quarter numbers were a long time ago but haven't reported, and they said "We'll report Q4 '07 in May." May? Then he left.

The forcasting model for fiscal performance has shattered under the weight of fuel costs and whatever other parameters they didn't allow for (low ticket sales, not enough residual sales, who knows).

No one saw this coming.