Heyas,

In my opinion, and only as a thought exercise:

The loss of DAL would, no doubt, cause a cash crunch.

Assuming that FDX and UAL/CAL wouldn't particularly wish to shoulder the burden of every other pilot group remaining in ALPA, it's my guess that they'd probably bail as well. AirTran is already a forgone conclusion.

So what happens then? My guess is the major airlines would form a new group, possibly with SWA, UPS and AMR included, albiet with a much looser "Articles of Confederation" than what ALPA currently operates under. Call it "Super Premium Major Airline Pilots Coalition" (SPMAPC).

Those groups would seek to contract out major items of collective interest that is now handled by ALPA National, such as Aeromedical, EF&A, and the ALPA PAC.

Ironically, those parts of ALPA are already set up to operate as a contract entity, and already handle many pilot groups outside of ALPA.

In consideration of this, what happens to ALPA National as it now stands? My guess without the massive cash flow of the majors, they'd need to split up and pare down as much as possible, and split off the revenue producing part of ALPA from the representational part.

The first thing that would happen, in my wild guess, is that all of the services that are already set up to provide contract services, such as the above (Aeromed, EF&A, etc) would be placed into a holding group. Call it "Airline Pilot Services, Inc".

The ALPA PAC would probably be renamed "Airline Pilots Congressional Action Committee" or some such. They would become the main lobby-for-hire group.

The representational half would remain as ALPA, but now left representing regional and smaller airlines. Without the major subsidy provided by the heavy hitters, I'm not sure how well they'd fair. There would certainly have to be a dues increase to try to retain any semblance of the services they now enjoy.

But without the barrier of DFR, those groups could then actively solicit major airline flying (AKA race to the bottom). OTOH, the major airline groups could wage unrestricted warfare to reclaim their flying, without much worry of RJDC type actions.

All in all, the chairs would remain the same, just re-organized, with much more emphasis on autonomy and contracting out the grunt work. The services provided to the smaller & regional airlines would, no doubt, suffer.

As I said, I'm bored, and just running a thinking game. Who wants to jump in?

Nu