Appreciate the love Ten. Maybe I do drink too much but I can assure you it's not Koolaid. I am a very positive person and a very realistic person. I understand basic economics and I'm a student of the US airline business (not the air cargo or foreign air line business). I also don't really care about today but think in longer terms, like 2 or 3 years down the road. That is why I'm so optimistic about the future for DL pilots, not what's happening today but what is going to start unfolding as we head into 2014. Our management team really wants 10bil in debt and a super strong year to get DL on the S&P 500 and have put off a lot of expenses to get us there (wonder why the board put off hiring-duh). There are growth airplanes that are going to start showing up in 2015, AA/US will route rationalize sometime in 2014 creating limited growth opportunities. Fuel will continue to trend downward and when do we exchange openers ?
If we push hard on the next contract my opinion is we will be in a much better position to bargain then we were on the last despite what some say.