This is from the 3rd qt conference call

Susan Carey

Q. I'm not sure who might want to answer this question. Just wondering if you guys can walk me through the $454 million special item relating to the pilots tentative. I'm just trying to understand what that is. Is that just like a date of signing lump sum payments? Because you're mentioning $250 million in late this year or in early '13 as a starter. So I'm just trying to understand what exactly this is.

John D. Rainey - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

A. Susan, this is John Rainey. As Jeff mentioned, we have a gag order imposed on us by the NMB, so I can't speak with a lot of specificity to this. What I can tell you is that it's, I would say, common in agreements like this to have an upfront payment. Some of that is contingent upon certain hurdles that will be achieved after the contract is signed. And we would expect the cash flows actually come towards year end and into next year.


Susan Carey

Q. Depending on hurdles achieved by the company or by the pilots?

John D. Rainey - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

A. By the pilots, just in terms of getting the contract done and integrating.

Susan Carey

Q. Okay. And can I just ask then, are we going to be seeing accruals for other unions in subsequent quarters?

John D. Rainey - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

A. To the extent that we think we're going to have a labor agreement, that will be -- and there's a cost, upfront cost to that, that will be built into our forward-looking guidance. But I will say, Susan, that this is a significant step forward for us. The pilots are a very visible group and they're a very important part of our airline. This is a group that's gone some period of time without getting a pay increase, and I think paying our labor groups competitively is important to our philosophy as a company. And we're actually pretty excited about the significant step forward.

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