Counsel 44 held their LEC meeting on Friday December 7th and Lee Moak specifically said that hiring for 08 had NOT been effected by fuel prices and the plan was still to hire "600 to 1,000" or something like that. In other words, no changes to what has been written on this board.

The LEC/MEC can not really do anything about fuel. It seems they are preparing for consolidation - in the event something does happen, they want to be fully prepared. Right now their projections do not show furloughs with any of the partners Delta might get paired with.

Given current events, I think the prognosis for Delta new hires is good.