Pre-merger was a different kettle of fish ...Sailing, your airline bought my airline, took it's flying (code), bankrupted it, then spun it off to a non union carrier who immediately engaged in illegal self help by transferring the aircraft we now flew for Delta to it's non union side of the operation. My hiring achieved what ALPA would have sought via it's Merger and Fragmentation Policy back in the day that a Delta MEC member handed me my first copy of Flying the Line nearly fifteen years ago (while working on the Bid Restricted SO SLOA, to get jobs for Delta pilots, btw)

For the rest of you, like 1234; the logic makes sense on a short term basis. Of course if the only sandwich shop in the terminal doubles its prices it will make a profit. The long term picture is that the City will lease three other sandwich shops space in the terminal and they will enter the market for Bologna on Wheat ... eventually driving down profits for "sandwich capacity reductions is our leverage." Worse, since the new entrants have no legacy costs their will have a cost advantage on the "capacity reductions are our leverage" Bologna vendor.

As stated clearly by Bastian and Anderson, our continued shrinkage is driving up unit costs. This fact makes us less competitive long term.

Sailing always gets angry when someone contrasts the growth at other airlines with what appears to be a slow liquidation of what Delta Air Lines was. It is imagined "as long as Sailing got his," the rest of us should literally be happy to clean his garbage from the flight deck until we retire two years after he does.