Originally Posted by sailingfun

Your statement is not exactly true. It was a negotiation. In return for the company getting the 3 year window we got a higher percentage of the flying. 2.4 percent if I recall. I have since my last post been contacted again by people directly involved. There are some interesting numbers. The first thing that needs to be understood is with the Alitalia agreement the company had to grow our share of flying to be in compliance long term. That is part of the 2.4 percent mentioned above if a snapshot had been taken the day they joined the alliance. Had we kept the 1 year window and the metric when Alitalia was added they would be in compliance. That is why they got the 3 year window, allowing them time to add the additional required flying. That has not happened because of the economy in Europe. We have not lost flying percentage wise to AF/KLM. The pull down has been equal on both sides. We did not however gain the flying we were supposed to get with the 3 year window. I thought we had made a greater pull down but that is not the case. In fact in terms of block hours our percentage is up from around 53 percent of the transatlantic JV hours to 55 percent today. The agreement is based of course on a metric more complicated then straight block hours however block hours equates directly with jobs.
We have some really qualified people working on this and monitoring the situation. If pilots have concerns they are more then willing to talk with you and explain things in terms that the layman can understand. All it takes is a few phone calls. The union is well aware the company may fall out of compliance and has plans in place to work on equitable solutions. They can't however take any action until they are actually in violation of the agreement.