I ran the numbers after the company apparently lined through nearly everything. Personally I think we'd be better of taking 3% now, and getting the company to remove the 2 hour callout language and keeping the 2018 amenable date.

Why?

Because too many people seem to have the idea that we are getting "Delta parity" in 2016. But we're not. We are getting the average between Delta and United. Plus there are two assumptions that we don't know yet regarding Delta's potential raise:

1. That their rates will be set by January 2016, which is when the pay rate snap-shot takes place. If they aren't in place by then, we're screwed.

2. That Delta would have to receive a substantial pay rate increase to overcome the lower United pay rates in order to substantially get our pay above the current proposed DAL+3%. They might get that big raise, but they might get a smaller raise that's phased in over the life of the contract. DAL getting a 4-5% raise in 2016 still won't do us any favors.

I don't like it as much as the rest of you, but the MOU cost neutral arbitration language really handicaps us. If we go to arbitration, we get zero economic improvements. We get minor (if any) QOL improvements, mostly just a shuffling of contractual language from the current three contracts.

I personally regarded the arbitration as a fail-safe for any attempted scope grab, and we seem to be able to avoid that at this point. With scope off the table, I personally think that arbitration will net us a worse financial position with no QOL improvements.

Keep in mind, us getting a 3% raise now will help DAL get an improved contract, and help United get an improved contract...so down the road, when it's our turn for real contract negotiations, we're all in a better position. Take that for what it's worth.