Answer the question? LOL, ok LTJG Kaffee (A Few Good Men reference, obviously).

First of all I don't know what they're doing WRT the loans, nor do I know the exact terms and conditions of the loans aside from very general highlights that may or may not even be the case. Do you? That said, I'm generaly in favor of them taking the loans. I thought it was stated that they did apply for them because they had to get the application in prior to the deadline, but hadn't yet decided to file for them, which was in line with what everyone else is doing. Is that correct, and if not then what is the case at PPOS?

As for the SIL's and early outs, I've talked about that at length. I am in favor of both. However the effectiveness of early outs is very limited and hits a pretty hard wall at a certain number. AA's exact number may or may not be the same as our's, as it depends on numerous factors like relative age/seniority in each category and we have a LOT of categories thanks to marketing running all aspects of the airline for quite some time. SIL's are a nice short term savings and I am in favor of that. There is long term savings there as well, but progressively less and that may go to near zero if they don't have a constant and large amount of takers. The mentality "why should I SIL when I can just get full ALV to do nothing?" is very real.

I agree that the company made a big mistake rescinding them for the petty and pathetically low ROI they think it will produce. We're getting a WOOP WOOP PULL UP! and they're all heads down running the checklist a for zone temp controller #2 caution light with the ridiculous obsession with an FA union as they indulge the FA's with the abject nonsense of comparing themselves to us instead of their unionized FA counterparts. If that's all they care about, then none of this matters because this will probably all be decided long before that stupid little battle is won or lost.

We're so far not seeing the ledaership required from the top. Hopefully that changes. But there is no way we skate out of this without some hits, unless we're truly on the verge of a rapid and near term V shaped recovery. I'm just not seeing that.