I’m not really sure how much of this conversation is you guys enjoying each others’ company and how much is actual debate.

But JetBlue is no worse (or better) than any other airline out there, nor for that matter any publicly traded company out there. Simply put, every dollar that goes to a pilot is diverted from its path to a shareholder’s pocket. And those shareholders want it.

Delta pays what they pay not because the management loves the pilots. It’s because the pilots will make the company and the shareholders pay if they get less than they think they should. The difference between us and them is: they’ve been at it longer, have more iterations of the negotiating process under their belts and are no longer trying to imagine a company that loves them sooooo much that they are dying to give them a raise. They TOOK that money. We’ll get there, but it’ll take a few rounds of this and some time. Oh, and balls.