Originally Posted by
Moby Dick
History lesson...that pay rate was won when DAL got the 2000 United + 1 pay rate. The United pay rate was a straight out bribe to get the UAL pilots to accept the proposed UA/US merger that never got off the ground.
Its also the pay rate that put UA into bankruptcy after which DAL did a "Me, too!" filing the day before the law changed to keep airlines from unilaterally dumping pension plans.
One could make the argument that pay rate put you into bankruptcy court, too.
No, what put us in bankruptcy court would probably take me ten pages or more to write. Also add in the massive expansion of the LCC's with pilots willing to work for peanuts.