I don't question the desire for growth (I'm junior to you by the way), I question the link between contract improvements and bankruptcy. Personally, when I get minimum days off, I wish the minimum were higher; when I have a mx delay and get paid 4 hours to work 14, I wish we had a duty rig based on actual duty; when see my 401k, I wish we had a better company match; when I pay almost $400 a month for health insurance, I wish we had better coverage (I'm not trying to start a debate about politics or whose contract is better). Now that our agreement is amenable, why is it that many of the people who complain about these things on a regular basis, are suddenly afraid to change them? When they communicate with the pilot group, management takes many opportunities to stress the need for competitiveness, but if you read the financial statements or listen to the quarterly conference calls, labor costs usually take a backseat to many other factors that we as pilots have no control over. When the execs sit down to negotiate their compensation package, do you think they're afraid to make more than their peers? Look through Skywest's 10k - http://inc.skywest.com/invest/Annual...s/10k-2011.pdf
Look at the CASM for the past few years. In 2008 it was 15.9 cents and in 2009 it was 11.8 cents -- we had the exact same pilot contract, yet our costs went down by 25% -- even if we worked for free, it would not go down that much (on pg 48 you'll see that total wages and benefits amount to 3 cents per seat mile); obviously pilot costs do not make or break an airline. You'll also notice that mgmt. clearly tells investors that they are very interested in getting this JCBA done quickly. If we allow that leverage to be flushed away in a mediocre or concessionary TA we have no one to blame but ourselves.