Damn! I was hoping to get back to Tbilisi this month. Thanks for the info, though!

BTW, your expectations for our next contract are pretty close to mine. I sure hope the MEC isn't setting their sights lower than that.

You make a good argument for an early abbreviated agreement outside of section 6 negotiations. It would be good to raise the bar as AA and UCAL are negotiating agreements.

I also think that management is all too aware of how much more smoothly the operation runs if we are on board. In the normal course of doing business, the pilots do a lot to grease the gears of Delta Air Lines. I bet Delta management can even put a rough dollar amount on this, based upon their experiences in 1996 and 2000.

I'm not saying we would start throwing sand in the gears-- that would be an illegal job action. Nor would it be any sort of concerted action, started on this or other web boards I'm just thinking that guys would be generally disgruntled, and would not go above and beyond to make the operation run well, if negotiations weren't going well.