Huey,

You and I are probably not to far apart in age and have similar backgrounds so we have a long ways to go in this industry. I can understand why you see things as rosy compared to the military but this appears to be your first job under a collective bargaining agreement. Here's some important takeaways: nothing happens fast in negotiations. The fact that management is rushing you into a deal should seem odd considering they almost always slow negotiations down to their benefit. Second, you're absolutely rifgt, management doesn't sit around planning your demise, but they do follow the negotiating playbook. And again it's not personal to them, just business, but it also requires us to take the appropriate response to each one of those steps. They're going for a very early kill here, and it's rather unusual because usually a pilot group would see this coming a mile away and the next play would be made and so on and so forth.

Finally, past practice has proven that pilots make significant gains in times of economic prosperity, and take concessions in times of economic recession. Never in history has a pilot group taken concessions during times of economic prosperity. You have a lot of leverage. They just don't want you to know that. This isn't 2001 or 2004 or 2007. The rush to get a deal is because they know each day the economy gets stronger, oil gets cheaper, and you watch your peers at DL and UA make more than you, you become more empowered