The best we could do? Don't know. Could we get peer-set average rates? Yes. What are those? 320/321/737 average across our peers is 264. Next year it's 273. That's the all the peer 320/321/737 rates added together and divided by number of rates. CS rates: 253/259 is market rate, going to 263/270 Jan 1st. Can we get those? Maybe. We can certainly do better than 227/248 and 2% annual raises that won't even touch 2018 market rates for that jet. If they are teaser rates...company should have no problem obliging. If they are real rates, they need to be market rate, otherwise we are bringing down the industry average significantly. EMB rates? 230 for a 100 seater, 240 for a 130 seat E195E2, and that may even be too low.

Could we get peer average raises of 3%? Yes. Timeframe I'm willing to wait? As long as it takes. I can outlast the company...I guarantee it. All of us can. The company cannot move forward with what it wants to do without this contract...otherwise they would.

How long do I realistically think it would take? If on August 1st (if that's when it closes) it's a no vote, within a month survey data could be collected and analyzed, the few big ticket items needed to make this market rate could be brought in a new proposal to the company, and a new AIP could be agreed upon and voted on in September/October. Is that realistic? Maybe, maybe not. The union will say no, because they want this to pass now. ALPA is spending time and money on this. They are about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on road shows and selling this contract. It's in ALPA's best interest to wrap it up...they don't want to be in a labor dispute forever. DALPA said the same things to their pilots in TA15. They spent a million dollars on road shows trying to persuade the pilot group to vote yes. It's what ALPA does once they have a TA. After Delta pilots voted it down, DALPA took what, about 6 months or so IIRC to get a new contract, and thats after cleaning house with their MEC/NC, going through recalls, and reattacking a LOT of sections of their TA. We could easily do it in less time, with less drama, and less cleaning house. IMO, based only on bullets, we don't need many sections reopened. I'll wait to see the full language of the TA. But there are just a few that fall too short to be acceptable in this environment.

Is it worth the wait and risk for the unknown? That's a personal decision, and we have a lot of guys who are 1) new, 2) on 1st/2nd year pay and just want a big raise 3) afraid of not being able to get anything better 4) never gone through a negotiation cycle or this is their first airline and first airline contract, TA vote, etc., and the unknown scares them 5) think "we will get them next time, this is good enough for now." So I think this will pass. However, I've talked to a lot of people in various seats/seniorities, and I'm surprised by the number of real people who are awaiting final language, but heavily leaning no. A year or two ago they would have accepted it. But we've waited too long to get bottom of the peer set for what could be 7-8 years under this contract. What's another few months. And this mentality is not just the bluepilots crowd. It's non-lanyard wearing instructors, it's senior captains, it's junior guys, mid seniority captains on both planes I've talked to....I'd say this will be a lot closer to 50/50 than people are estimating.