We can talk strategies all day long, but not one mainline seniority number will be put at risk and that has to be agreed upon upfront. If not, we will meet and confer and then go our separate ways and work on bringing back our flying ourselves.

And yes, its our flying. If a regional goes IndyAir, especially if they are successful do you think they will let us in on it, especially with greater than a staple? Please.

As for longevity, never going to happen. It is a tall order to bring large portions of outsourced flying back. Getting the company to basically agree to pay top scale for all new hires would cost us way over and above whatever bargaining leverage it took to get the flying back in the first place. I don't think you will find anywhere close to a majority of mainline pilots willing to pay for that kind of a raise for all future new hires just so they can have such a new hire windfall. Never going to happen. And that's just pay. Then there's vacation, sick time, all at top scale. Right.

Meet and confer was the RJDC's equivalent of the 3 dollar USFL settlement. BFD. To any extent anyone is going to meet with anyone and come up with real solutions, it won't be from court ordered busy work. If we want to try and get creative, first we get the necessary prenups and then we get together and talk.

As for "flying Delta passengers" so does Alaska. So do several United Express and USAir carriers. That may have been relevant in 1999/2000 when Delta/DCI was almost completely comprised of mainline, ASA and Comair, all three in section 6, wholly owned and not flying for anyone else. But those days are long, long over and times have changed dramatically.

I'm all for some sort of balanced preferential hiring for our connection pilots but we are to far along different paths at this point to try and create a brand based SLI.

To any extent meet and confer is going to be useful in and of itself, its potentially to allow us to verify if scope restoration is indeed on the table or not. Even then I suppose its possible that DALPA could confer with the DCI carriers and/or Alaska (if they are covered too, and I don't see why they wouldn't be) and yet keep that hidden from its own pilots. But short of that, meet and confer may be the only real way to get a straight answer out of the politicos other than vague empty statements like "we don't intend on anticipating further scope relief at this particular time", etc.

We have so much on our plate to negotiate for and scope leads the list. But forcing the company into top scale new hires is capital we need to be spending elsewhere, like getting our flying back in the first place. A DCI NSL is one of the most difficult and expensive ways to do something that is already difficult and expensive.