I hate to agree with OTZ, but he’s right about the next contract being dictated by market conditions. It depends what economy we find ourselves in. Post 2001, 2008-2010? Forget it. 2015-2016 economy? Good times. Of course no one has a future predicting machine that is always accurate, but I do think this market has had its run and we are due for a downturn/crash in the next 1-3 yrs, right in time for 2020 contract. The good times bring good contracts. The bad times, everyone knows what happens. Just hope for the best I guess.



I can tell you when I had DeltaNet Access a while back and scrolled through Deta schedules on the 717, 737, 320, very little of them had 75 hrs with 18-20 days off. Most of their lines were 15-16 off and about 72-78 hrs. I’m sure that changes month by month, season by season. But we really need to forget the old VX route network (all transcons that guaranteed nearly 6.5 heading west, 5.5 heading east) because that’s gone. That was the main reason we were able to get lots of block hour flying in as little days as possible. They’ve made it clear the Airbus is going to be the north/south plane and as such, average daily values going to 5.x change. Plus the fatigue mitigation rules aren’t in the contract, but they don’t seem to be going away any time soon.