Originally Posted by
scambo1
It has been established by the company in various written and verbal pieces that the 717s were too good to pass up, cost swa over a billion to sell them to us, etc. this is with the benefit of hindsight that I definitively say today that the 717s were coming...the company was going to find a way to get them here.
It is somehow your contention that we pilots were the lynchpin in this financing scheme...not ever going to believe that...ever.
Here are the solid commitments that Delta had for RJ flying BEFORE C2012.
Delta was committed to fly 311 RJ-50's through 2015. They will be down to less than 125 by then. Please explain how Delta was able to get out of all those commitments without the incentives that C2012 allowed them.
Delta was committed to pay the financing costs for all those aircraft through 2015 also. Please explain how Delta was able to get out of those financing commitments without the incentives that C2012 allowed them.
What you are saying is, "facts be damned, I know what I know therefore I am right." All I am asking for is some rational, logical explanation of how Delta would get out of those commitments without the additional 76 aircraft to offer as bribes to both the regional carriers and the financiers of those aircraft.
That was the point of the negotiation. That is why we got $1 billion 6 months early. Without those incentives, Delta was stuck with those 50 seaters and they could not introduce 88 717's into the system without increasing capacity too much. That is why they were going to get a smaller number of A-319's as Plan B. This was not some dodge, there were negotiations with both SWA and the other party at the same time, I saw the people roaming the halls of the GO.
Every single time management speaks in public, they talk about capacity control. To follow your logic, they would have just thrown that out the window, jammed more capacity into the system that they wanted, just because you say they were too good a deal to pass up. They could have been passed up and they would have been passed up. Your position ignores all the facts and instead relies on your gut feel. Is that how Delta management runs this operation, by gut feel or by hard analysis?
One last question. If the deal was too good to pass up, then why didn't SWA get more money out of Delta? You are saying Delta had no choice but to buy those aircraft, so why didn't SWA stick it to them? The answer is that Delta had a plan to walk away from those aircraft. That was Plan B.