It's not a issue of hiring pilots. The company has no organic 190 sims. It takes up to two years to order a sim and get it built, set up and certified. That assumes a purchase slot is available. If not it could be 3 or 4 years. Delta wanted a fleet of 70 to 90 of these aircraft. That size fleet would generate tremendous training churn with the current contract. It would push rented sim time rates way up and other then new hires no training is allowed in the time slot sold the most.
With the speed Delta wanted to bring this fleet onboard it may be that the sim time required with a large training churn beyond initial is simply not available at any price. If it is it will be very costly.
The company wants to minimize the churn by raising rates and making the new hire freeze longer.
Given the path we are now on allowing those changes in a side letter would be a mistake unless it included offsets that preserved any leverage this might give us.
A offset example would be we agree to those changes but the company has to raise all current rates 8.75% That means effectively no pay cut over the TA until 2017. I seriously doubt the company will go that route so it's a moot point.