I know many have personally attacked you here; I don't think I've ever made any personal attacks against you. If I have, my apologies; I've drunk posted more than a couple of times and it's part of my New Years resolutions to not drunk post.

I view this TA as part of the larger union picture of union bargaining. We snag a quick pay raise raising the bar on that front. Southwest's already in full contract negotiations so our pay rates help them out on that front and they (and Delta) can try to raise the bar on section 6 items. Hopefully when we return to the table for full contract negotiations, a lot of the work in terms of section 6 are already there in the new Southwest and Delta contracts, allowing negotiators to concentrate on those items rather than pay rates.

I also think that there's a much less insidious reason why the company wants to extend the pilot contract. I read a while back (can't remember the source; sorry, no reference at this time) that the company wants to stagger its union contracts so that it doesn't have to negotiate all of the contracts at the same time. Take that for what it's worth - that alone may be worth a quick 13% to the company.