I disagree. It has all the relevance to the negotiations. Delta doesn't operate the large wide body fleet that other U.S. legacy carriers do but they do sell tickets on those routes and generate profits through the code shares and especially the JVs. Our customers get to those destinations on a Delta ticket but at a lesser rate on Delta metal.

Delta's choice to outsource more of their international operations comes at a price for pilot careers. We serve all of those same markets with the ability to generate larger profits because more of the cost of operation is diverted to the partner carrier. This is a profitable business plan that we have enabled.

Our company has chosen to operate in this manner. And as you said we have little ability to influence the business plan. We do have the ability to retain a portion of those profits and shall continue to do that. Giving up any part of that pay stream is a non-starter, the genie is out of the bottle. It would remove compensation based on the whole corporations success and damage our careers by giving an incentive to management to outsource more operations.

Production balance agreements should protect both pilot hours and EASKs to argue for one over the other is to encourage either down gauging or reduced operational hours. Upside and growth are more likely now and we already have EASKs written into the agreements so adding, not replacing the current agreements with, block hours would benefit us in a down turn.