Originally Posted by
gzsg
As an old guy our almost worthless international scope language won't hurt me much. That being said, I will fight to improve it until I fly my last round trip to Sydney.
I hope the new Delta pilots are reading and paying close attention.
In my opinion this is the number one issue we need to tackle going forward.
Allowing management to outsource our international flying via JVs is not in our best interest, just like allowing over 800 RJs until our regional partners did over 65% of our domestic departures was not in our best interest.
United started SFO to Singapore last year and is now adding LAX to Singapore.
Please spare me the "we can't make money on international".
How did we get to over 800 RJs?
By line pilots repeating the excrement management was whispering in their ear.
"The RJs are saving our bacon!!!"
International widebody flying prints money during good times. It flushes money down the toilet in bad economic times. While I'm very happy to be flying international widebodies at United, our. -400s were flying sub-20% loads across the Pacific during SARS. The cash bleed almost had us joining Pan Am, Eastern, TWA and other airlines in the trash heap of defunct airlines.
JV allows airlines to revenue share without the economic risks. It smooths earnings through good times and bad, increasing long term stability.
As for dominating LAX, I consider American's facilities the best. But even with that, they won't be able to dominate LAX. Delta would do better to set up an international fortress hub in SEA.