The problem with the top-end scope is that unlike the RJs it is mostly invisible to you. While it is very easy to see 10 DCI 50-seat RJs as 500 seats for Delta, it's much more difficult to see the three Virgin Australia 777-300ERs as providing up to 525 seats for Delta.

I have a feeling once you look at the underbelly of multinational code-shares and JVs you will find a very real and growing threat to our career, because it has the biggest impact on the senior-most positions. Even worse the interaction of the various forms of outsourced flying can create situations where the feeder feeds the partner with no need for any Delta pilots. That situation currently exist at LAX.

Delta has 3-4 international flights at LAX. For reasons that exceed the scope of this post, Delta has decided not to feed the international flights LAX with DCI, but to have a codeshare agreement with Alaska Air. In essence at SEA and LAX, Alaska Air provides Delta with the same feed that DCI typically provides, but outside the limitations and restrictions imposed on DCI by the PWA.

When a Delta passenger in say SEA want's to travel to SYD, the Alaska Air 737 pilots fly the passenger to LAX and then a Delta 777 crew carries the passenger on to Sydney. The Alaska 737 feed, supports high-paying Delta 777 jobs by adding passengers to the LAX SYD flight.

So far so good.

Now Delta enters an agreement with Virgin Australia to collaborate on flying passengers from the US to Australia. Delta and VA enter into a JV agreement to share revenue on all joint US-Australia flights. (this JV is just weeks away) Delta operates a daily 777-200 LAX SYD flight, while Virgin Australia offer three daily US-Australia frequencies on 777-300ERs. Because this JV is a "revenue sharing" JV, there are only a few provisions in our PWA that govern this arrangement:

Delta needs to operate at least four flights/week to Australia.
In return, Delta is able to place up to 175 passengers on every VA flight, not to exceed 50% of the seats on each VA aircraft.
That's all we have.

So every day, our current Section 1 permits Delta the ability to sell 525 seats (3x175) on Virgin Australia to supplement the 269 passengers on our own 777-200LR. And unlike a traditional codeshare, where there is nothing more than a "finders fee" for passenger placed on other carriers, with the new JV, Delta and VA will be splitting the ticket revenue from all passengers on the Delta and Virgin Australia LA-Australia flights.

Back to our Delta passenger in SEA going to SYD. He goes on delta.com and searches for flights from SEA to SYD. To his surprise he finds that some of the results have the entire trip operated by non-Delta pilots. SEA LAX by Alaska air pilots and LAX SYD by Virgin Australia pilots. he might get Delta pilots from LAX to SYD, but that's just luck of the draw.
In the example above, Delta pays Alaska Air a fee to fly the passenger from SEA to LAX. In turn Alaska pays Delta a "finders fee" for providing a codeshare passenger. If the passenger chooses the LAX SYD leg that is operated by VA, Delta and VA will share the passenger revenue after subtracting the cost.

Unlike the RJs, you would never know any of this is going on unless you really started to dig and look at every possible combination of route and connection. The Virgin example is a very easy to understand one because it involves one US city and three Australian. This stuff gets really complicated when the number of cities and hubs is scaled up.

If I were Delta management, mindful of airline industry consolidation on a global scale, I would want my pilots to be worried about RJs and keep the current JV language in the PWA unchanged...

Cheers
George