Usually the Mesaba pilots will speak for themselves on the subject, convincingly. So I will yield the floor to them. My concerns with Tom Wychor's actions have been outlined on this board in great detail. What is more important is that ALPA authorized his actions.

Like any group, there are some really good folks there too. Mesaba here on this board is a good guy, and there are a couple of friends flying there also.

I'm a big believer in redemption and I think Wychor has done well for his pilots. But his actions were a bit of a reversal from when, speaking officially for the Mesaba pilots, they fought the ASA and Comair pilots PID effort & subsequent attempts at gaining job protections at Delta. Then Wychor sort of copied Lawson's strategy. The difference between Lawson and Wychor was that Lawson wanted to include the Delta pilots in scope negotiations, Wychor excluded the Delta pilots from scope negotiations.

Ironically, folks here got so mad at Lawson's stupid ineffective political letter, not understanding that Wychor actually did something that has a great deal more significance when it comes to undermining the Delta pilots. Most of my support for a merger has to do with managing this new power that the regionals may enjoy to do deals with Delta management in our absence. A merger is the best way to get that under control (under our MEC), JMHO. Again, IF (BIG IF) Pinnacle becomes an alter-ego.

What Wychor did is the exact threat I outlined when we divested Compass, if anyone remembers.