I will withhold my final judgement until I read the section 1 language as it's written. But for now, based on the negotiator notepads, passing this TA will give the company the equivalent of TWO Compass airlines in exchange for B717s (yesterdays technology tomorrow) and parking inefficient 50 seaters. All this based on the assumption of mainline growth, which I believe will happen right up to the additional large RJ cap. Then all those "beyond control of the company" issues will pop up and DAL will be forced to park those older inefficient mainline jets. At that point the block hour ratio kicks in. I'm willing to bet that in a contraction, all that block hour reduction will come out of the remaining 50 seat fleet and the large RJ's will steam ahead full tilt, flying more and more of our mainline routes in full compliance with the TA. In addition, the work rule changes and early retirement will ensure limited mainline hiring even with 88 mainline airframes added.

The bottom line for me is can I spend my remaining few years in this business looking my F/O straight in the eye and say I voted yes to selling his (and my) seat to another airline. I'm not willing to do that.

The solution is so simple (and frankly...why did our NC not hold out for this). We fly the larger gauge RJs, the company has no cap and can still renegotiate their leases and get rid of the 50 seat albatross that they created. What's the stumbling block...the company loses it's B scale.

Should we vote this down...I hardly think the company will sit on it's hands and do nothing for the next 3 years despite our concessionary contract. They wanted something badly and we might give it to them for essentially nothing.