Sailing,
Understand your post, but do not agree that ALPA E&FA puts data before politics. E&FA people serve at the pleasure of MEC Chairmen (generally).
I advocate that we figure out what the number is to perform our own flying and bid it there. Unity trumps pay, particularly on airplanes we are way too senior to ever fly.
Curious your thoughts, but I do not think we will ever reach for these goals until the current generation of ALPA leadership retire ... if ALPA survives that long.
Do you agree this outsourcing is a existential strategic threat for ALPA?
Numbers wise the Next Gen 900 (ie downsized 1000) does better than the E175 and would be more capable of supporting "mainline" pay. I need to figure out how to host charts to demonstrate that in reality, the bigger equipment is probably under compensated for its productivity compared to outsourced RJ's.*
Internally there is "cognitive dissonance" on the CRJ-900 (ie "76 seater") I ran my figures past Delta's network planning guy during a pilot lounge visit and he said they were real close to what GoJets was doing. Then Southwest came along and published about the same thing. Now our Reps are allegedly being told Delta told them my numbers were way off. I think what happens is a new operator is compared with an old operator and ALPA E&FA picks the numbers which best make their case. I do the opposite. But, a new operator's cost most likely would be best to evaluate what a new flying award would cost out at.
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Nothing in the above post has anything to do with current negotiations. I have nothing solid to go on, but I am optimistic that those Representing us have done a good job.