Just a thought here and not really too important for this contract, but it will be for the next.

Seems to me with TONS of retirements happening in 2020 and beyond hitting 800 in some years, Delta will be financially relieved of most of the highest paid individuals and be replacing them with people on the 1-6 year part of the scale. I realize all current CAPTS and most FOs have maxed out the pay scale at the 12 year mark, but that will quickly change and the longer Management stalls hiring, the more they will save per year. Accordingly I think that if we get a contract in 2013, the 2018 contract should be a whopper in gains because of how much less expensive the pilot group will be. That coupled with the savings on drawing down the debt and not having to pay half a billion a year in interest will create theoretically more availability to capital to pay us still around of course.