I keep hearing people say that..."the real negotiations begin once we start arbitration". And I ask why, and I'm told that we have something they want, namely HBT and I/D fences coming down.

Here's my take on that posture. First off, both of those things are probably on the company's "nice to have" list, not a "must have". They can run the company without those gives. So it comes down to "just how bad do they want it." I think that answer is about $350 million per year bad. They want it, but they aren't going to pay any price to get it.

It's just like anything else you or I would try to bargain for. Even if we really, really want something, we're not going to plunk down just any sum of money to get it. The truth is, in real dollar amounts, those two items combined are worth about $50 million per year. To the company, it's worth a little more because it means getting a solution earlier and being able to use that solution to make the airline more efficient. But even then, I just don't see them willing to give us full LOS, 5+ hour min calendar day and all the other expensive goodies that we want.

We have some leverage, sure. And that leverage is enough to get us Delta +7% with a couple years of LOS thrown in there for good measure. Those things alone are worth many times more than what the company is asking in return. That whole line about how the raise was a reward for being awesome pilots and employees? That's simply PR. You need to just forget that stuff and realize this whole thing is basically just a purchase deal, just like you'd buy a new car at a dealer. At some point all the flowery language goes out the window and you haggle over price point. Same thing here.