Clean socks are good too. Would you give up a couple trans atlantic flights a day to get free company issue clean socks?

Of course global protection is good. The issue is how much protection are we talking about, and what did we sacrifice to get it?

Forgiving an imbalance that was supposed to be 50% (it was never supposed to be 48.5% that was merely the worst case absolute floor bottom that ended up being the goal which ended up being the ceiling after we fell through it) in exchange for protecting less global block hours than we currently fly is far from the slam dunk win you're making it out to be.

I've advocated for both EASK and BH protections, as well as global. This isn't very good at any of those things. I'd rate it as a net negative were it not for the hard 2 year period replacing the asinine, pathetically negotiated unlimited bottom 3+1 plan we were on before. That is actually a very nice win, and the 757 and wide only protection is great too...provided VA or whoever can't sneak in narrow bodies under the radar, which I haven't got to the bottom on yet.

So does the 2 year hard balance equate to or exceed the unlimited 4 year cycle of abuse we were on before? Given that its a 2% cut we're looking at, it actually might, since I'd rather be at 46.5% every year than 40, 42, 37, 49 cycle under the current system. It still sucks we can't get a fair share every single year though. I guess half only means half for foreign airlines for some reason.