Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

A friend wrote to ask about our 8K filing and what it means for scope. His point was Delta reported 21% of it's revenues from "Contract Carrier Arrangements" totalling $6.4 Billion on expenses of roughly $5.5 Billion; meaning a little more than $900 million of our operating profit was the result of outsourced RJ flying.

If so, that challenges the notion that we're losing money on RJ flying and begs the question why our management sees this as somehow ancillary to our "real airline" flying.

Management will say their strategy of divesting flying is working. I'd ask our management, "How much more would we make if we were not paying extra shareholders, parasitic management, dispatch and maintenance organizations? How much more would we make if we kept our contractor's profits in house?" And, I want to ask them, "Just what is our core business ... yeah ... well then why do you outsource it to someone you deem operationally inferior?"

For ALPA, I would like to ask "How does it promote job security to outsource the most profitable component of our operation?"

This highlights the cost to "take it back" and suggests there really is a strong economic push to rationalize capacity between the 76 seat line and what is currently offered at mainline.

Management would be smart to bring this flying in house. It is core to our business. ALPA would be smart to DEMAND this flying be brought in house in the interest of job security.

But, I fear both will see the profits made by outsourced flying and say ... "good." The problem with that notion is that if what we have is "good" then more is "better." More is a 717, or C Series.