Not to mention we have no eventually essential next gen planes on order, while little AeroMexico has the latest and greatest. We've pushed ours out til 2020 (at least) for the 787, with no MAX or NEO's to speak of while a third world code share partner inks 11billion worth after we invest in them. At least we are getting 15-20 year old used planes.

There is some protection in the CS and JV language, but when it comes down to it, DL management appears to be more than willing to give up the flight revenue in order to let a phantom third party oputsource provider like AM or AS do it as long as the over all network is preserved or expanded. They will take the hit on the flight segment revenue as long as the network route map continues to win and the HVC's have lounges, especially if they don't have to spend money, grow operationally or add debt for anything. The end result is entirely unsustainnable as it puts us on an ever increasing cost structure trajectory requiring more and more capacity dicipline, which further increases our costs. Merging just to shrink is also a very limited solution and only adds to the funding of the ULCC and foreign ponzi scheme order books. By growing our outsource proxies, it lowers their unit costs relative to ours, which further incentivises them to keep growing them and shrinking us.

But it buffs the next quarter's numbers. Right up until it doesn't. Then golden parachues will be popped and it'll be someone else's problem.