Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Depends on who you are quoting. This is a decrease from what the recruiters were told just a week or two ago. It is very large increase from any official numbers posted by Flight Operations management.

The new LOA will help our staffing. Erosion of top line scope and a merger with a carrier which is under-utilizing it's crews and aircraft will hurt; we've seen that before.

I don't know anything and only have my own analysis to work on, but, both Hawaiian and Skymarks have significant network issues that Delta can fix. Skymarks problems are so bad that Airbus is refusing to deliver new specially built and configured A380's because it fears it will never be paid. Airbus states before JFK - Haneda flights can begin, Skymarks must have a codeshare partner. Further, the other carriers in the region all enjoy immunized joint ventures except for .... Delta.

Skymarks CEO (my impression) is a bit of an idiot and maybe lacks integrity making him a very difficult player to actually do business with. They need an IT solution, they need a network solution. Only Delta has what they need, but they have thus far stubbornly refused. I've never seen a manufacturer be as blunt as EADS has with Skymarks. Makes for interesting reading.

Korean Air is much more pragmatic even though it is a State owned carrier.

Then we have Hawaiian, who is doing well on inter-island flying, but who faces challenges on their long haul network. None of the Asian long haul carriers are doing particularly well, but Hawaiian's assets would instantly be more productive and profitable in the Delta network. We should have bought them at $5.60 a share. But if you see the cash we just set aside, it is near current market cap at 3x the valuation where I got tired of waiting and sold my shares.

... and I do not know if means anything, but those smart men who ran for and were elected to our merger committee had already built integration models for Hawaiian pilots.