4a2b at Purple was put in the CBA by the PILOTS, not Fred, albeit with less detail than we would like to see. Your disdain for our group is noted.

4a2b is to prevent or delay a furlough, a righteous cause. It would be a cold day in MEM when they can claim 4a2b is needed again and if that cold day comes then I will be happy to see us protect our last guy on the list. With 700+ pending retirements and a couple of hundred open positions right now, attrition alone should take care of any double dip or major turn back. We are not hiring to replace all known attrition currently and that seems smart. The reduced BLG's are not actual reduced, they are paying us our CBA pay guarantee, but in order to get the average pay close to the minimum simple math dictates it is an easy choice to build lines below guarantee and pay them up. The only reason that makes sense at Purple is because our reserve pay is tied to the average bid line value and the higher that is the higher reserve pay is, so when you have extra bodies in the fleets that are heading to the yard it makes sense to lower cost, but still pay the guarantee.

I understand the concern about an impending 4a2b but the circumstances are not even close at this point in time with round 1.