Agreed. The question is just how much money we're talking about. Pay rates do not tell the whole story, until you consider what is being sold off to product those pay rates. Of the 8% the TA provides on July 1 of this year, I would estimate that roughly half is from selling scope, sick leave, and productivity. The 6% next year is almost totally from the PS swap, leaving us with about a 1% gain from vacation and CQ training pay increases. The 3% in the ensuing two years would be achieved anyway from 3 B. 4. if our fellow employees get as much as 3% in each of the next two years. IF UAL gets even a cost of living raise on time, even the 4% net we get this year will be achieved by C2012.

To be clear, the assumptions I'm using are that Delta's PTIX is at least $6B per year, and that it grants our fellow employees pay raises each year, as they have ever since emerging from BK.*