Last I checked, someone actually has to fly the airplanes. The regionals artificially shut off supply to the majors by upping their pay - Delta has less people coming in the door on Virginia Avenue looking for a job. In an environment where Kirby is looking to gain a competitive advantage by starving the other majors of pilots, seems to me that a pilot labor bidding war was just lit off on Friday.

For those that are saying don’t ask too much - you’ll get nothing (Sailing, Herk, et al), the paradigm that you have been use to has completely changed. It is a brave new world. The RLA is frankly not the limiting factor right now. The first mover from the management side (be it Delta, AA, or United) will have at least a marginal cost advantage over their competitors. All revenue is rising right now - not up to us to figure out what that the exact revenue number must be to foot the bill, but ticket prices are rising / have risen.

Bottom line - you want to run an airline, you need pilots to fly. The system is at its break point and the time advantage is now with us. Delta needs a deal - time to extract a solid one.