While that could indeed end up happening, I don't think that's what this is about. Yet.

South/Central America is a massive emerging market especially for air travel. We have grown our mainline in the region and its one of the few areas of the globe we are still growing. But we will end up needing an intra South American alliance of some kind, especially intra-Brazil.

If done right (...if...) an intra-regional network will indeed feed our jets to and from in a way we are not legally allowed to do. Not having an alliance partner in that region is not a path towards massive growth; its a sure fire way to lose in the competitive, global, integrated marketplace.

What I hope we do as a company and certainlly as a pilot group is to get agressive protections on our O&D US traffic. In the case of Gol, I'd say pretty much exclusive rights in the alliance on those routes belong to us. I think I read they only have 2 767's and they are being transferred to us. To any extent our MEC/NC gets a say, I'd like to see a 100% claim of all US-South America flying go to us. Unlike linking up with a true global like Air France/KLM, this is a ground floor opportunity to do so. Any resistance from the company to provide us with at least status quo levels of assurance in that regard should be viewed as nothing short of a hostile act of war going into negotiations.

Some may think that if we ended all alliances and code shares, that we would spring into growth mode and fly to every city in the globe, ordering wide bodies at a rate that would make all the ponzi scheme Asian and Middle East airlines blush. Of course that would never happen. We wouldn't over fly and capacity dump on the entire globe like that; would just lose mass amounts of market share to superior networks.

That's why we need good partnerships. This isn't the 1960's when US airlines were the only way to get anywhere in the world. That shouldn't be our focus anyway. We need to be making sure that the alliances we enter into benefit our pilot group and our airline in a way that protects and increases our jobs.

Look at Air France's route map. AeroMexico's. Aeroflot's. China Southern's. Gol's. Any of them. Even Alaska's. You will see tons of cities we would never, and I mean ever, fly to under any circumstance. Yet tapping into those networks makes ours significantly stronger and helps to fill our planes. Its up to us and our section 1 to make sure its done in a way that benefits us and doesn't harm us.

I'm not against the Air France code share. I'm in favor of it. Big time. We need it or we simply don't compete. I'm not against the Alaska code share. We benefit from it and that's great. Ditto for Gol. What I am against is code share abuses like 2 years of no floor in the AF/KLM code share, or rampant, flagrant, in our faces abuse of the Alaska code share on high frequency high density city pairs that our airline and pilot group is completely shut out from. That is unacceptable and must be fixed or a strike at any price is warranted if necessary. If we sign on Gol and don't get fierce protections on flights to and from the US, probably to the point of exclusivity, then this is a bad deal and we should do everything in our power to make sure this deal benefits us and Delta Air Lines. Not the Virginia Avenue Bonus Monger Mercenary Manager Travel Group. Delta Air Lines.

Adding Gol can be a smart move, depending on how its structured. Cabotage is a threat to work to prevent to be sure. But if it ends up happening, having a good network with pre-existing protections that protect and even favor our pilot group is the best defense we can put up at that point.

Speaking of all this, is the Gol deal one we have to aproove? If so, what protective stipulations are we insisting we get out of it?