I usually agree with you, but I'm going to pile on here:

here's what I got form one of the reps:

the company's proposal is to add 50..... 76/70 seat jets. They will park all the 50 seaters resulting in a net hull loss of 75 aircraft. They also have offered to tie the arrival of the new rjs to mainline fleet growth and offered improved job protections..... The MEC has not approved any negotiations for the company's proposal.


My thoughts:

It seems to me, that the problem will solve itself. I am relieved to hear that MTOW scope concessions are not on the table. But I certainly don’t see how the “ratio” will be improved by giving scope relief for 50 new (70/76) seat airplanes. The 50 seat planes are going away regardless. Management has 3 big problems with the 50’s: The people hate them, they are extremely inefficient, and the regionals can’t staff them. Those planes will disappear regardless of what we do, so the only thing we stand to gain by giving relief on the 70/76 seat planes is to accelerate the process. This is not a win for us, We would be solving all three of managements problems mentioned above, and in some crazy Stockholm syndrome way, convincing ourselves that we need to “give” them something in return for the opportunity!

Why not just hold fast on the 70/76, seat scope, and let management retire the 50’s at their leisure, or as dictated by financial prudence? By doing so, we will eliminate the 50 seaters form the mix, give away no new capacity with the larger RJ’s, and and if Delta has need of 50 new planes worth of lift, they can bring the MRJ’s or more C1000’s to mainline? That will mean 600 new jobs at Delta that would have otherwise remained at the regionals. (And that’s 600 more ALPA Dues-paying jobs, which should make the Moakies happy!) I think most pilots at Delta would much rather see 600 more pilots under them on the list, and 50 more airframes on Delta property, than a slightly accelerated 50-seat retirement schedule, and some insignificant cash incentive from the company. The 50’s are not our problem! They are management’s problem. So, why not let management solve it?

That said I think there should be no relief in the JV sections, either.