I tend to disagree with a number of your points. The deal with ONEX for a start. Gerry Schwarz was looking to merge the two money losing companies into one profitable one. Milton was not forced to do anything. He over bid because of his ego. The losers were the shareholders and the employees. But hey, he and his buddies at GCAS are driving Ferraris, so it's OK.

I stand corrected, AC mainline no longer flies CRJ's, they now fly ERJ's. My mistake.

My company ordered (remember the options here in the totals here)over 40 777/787's. I'm not naive enough to think we'll ever see half of them. Most, like AC, will be for fleet replacement. I won't see the pretty numbers at the top of the pay scale for some time. Our friends at WJ will be on six figures and in the left seat years before we are. And they won't be stuck on a stby Xmas run to Osaka.

I think your last line is the most telling with how AC is run, and the realities of operating an airline in this day and age; likely a big reason AC will continue to lose money while WJ will continue to be profitable. It's also the reason I'd stay far away from AC. The airlines in the States that ran the same way ended with the worst pay in the industry. But hey, time and the next contract will tell.

Again, many of those orders are replacements. AC runs the ERJ against WJ 737's with inflight entertainment and enough belley space to actually carry all the pax baggage. 7 to 12 years for an upgrade to the A320, even my airline beats that. At WJ it's averaged two. Good point about the high end pay scale, but again, I don't believe that with the current managers it will be around for too long.

Don't get me wrong here, I understand your point, and if Milton wasn't evil and self serving, and they didn't have such a monstrous debt (yes, they still do, no matter how they fiddle with the numbers) I'd try very hard to believe that AC was going to be a place to be. I just don't. Look at the past for insight into the future and I think one get's a good idea of what is likely to happen, hence my reference to what SW now has as far as QOL and pay vs. the big airlines, not to mention benifits (I'll leave the AC benifits to you; retirement fund etc.).

Either way good luck with it. A good upside with AC is that you can take that nice new Bus or Boeing ticket and go somewhere hot if they do run into trouble again.

And I like Thunder Bay. I used to be based out of there. You should really give it a try. I hear Bearskin is hiring.