The crux of the whole “argument” is not the semantics of what it’s called. The meat of the matter is, “Is international flying increasing, decreasing, or stagnant” ?

The answer is....it depends upon what your metric/time frame is

From where I started it increased from a new hire, prolly decreased after Pan Am merger hey-day, increased prior to bankruptcy, decreased after the DL/NW merger........and now increasing from about 2015. Like I said....to me it’s relative.....but (the good news) is that Delta is increasing international airframes, which I applaud.