This could well be true, but the point is it might be worth concentrating our negotiating capital towards other things that increase value besides pay rates.

Let's just assume that Delta is only willing to concede the stated $1.1 billion dollars of value over three years they offered us in TA2015. Most of that $1.1 billion dollar pie was made up of pay rate increases. Wouldn't it make sense to make that a much smaller piece of the pie and carve out larger slices of pie for retirement, medical costs, vacation and other areas that would put money in our pockets? I'm not arguing that the pie shouldn't have been bigger, to the tune of say $3 billion dollars over three years, but that's besides the point.

It might take 5 years to catch up to American or United, but it will eventually happen. In the mean time we've increased the value of our contact in other areas that we would have neglected in order to increase pay rates. Furthermore, giving up profit sharing for pay rates is pointless. With patience we can have both and use negotiating capital for other improvements.