I know the question was not directed to me, but as someone who did ALPA work for years, I would say it was net loss. I dedicated a lot of time doing things I thought was important for us all, but in the end was a major waste of time. In the end, I wished I hadn’t ever volunteered.

The biggest benefit of the whole experience was that a learned a great deal regarding how the union works and about the nature of pilots. In the former, my pre-conceived notions were 180 degrees from reality. The union is a bottom up organization where power resides at the MEC level. ALPA is more a franchise than a union. In the latter, my eyes were equally opened. I somehow thought pilots were different than the general population and more able to seek access, analyze, and then pragmatically act on information. I was quite wrong there. We pick leaders who best tell us what we want to hear just like everyone else. Our ability or willingness to do exponential math is also as equally flawed.

We are slaves to RLA. We refuse to adapt strategies that have failed, decade after decade, to yield results that beat inflation over the long term. We collectively live in a state of cognitive dissonance and have a highly impaired vision of economic reality and deep ignorance of the past. I don’t expect that to go over well on this board. I will simply say that the results we achieve will speak for themselves.

Sailing has touched on the solution. Modest on time results greatly outperform over the long haul. The key being on time. Modest results after 3-4 years past the amendable date is a disaster and isn’t a viable option other than to stem a bleed out. We are backed into a corner now. Both US Airways and American have had a tragic history when in a similar situation. American never had a Contract 2000. US Airways went 10 years without a raise. It got so bad there that our FOs made more than their captains. All we need now to make that our reality is for a recession to land on us, or God forbid Global Financial Crisis 2.

I think we can still salvage this situation, but it will depend on a lot of lifting by other players, namely the NMB, American, and United. We are controlling our own destiny only as far as we can continue along a single path that remains to us. Singles, doubles, and triples can’t win the game. It’s home run or lose big time at this point.

I agree with Sailing. The mistake was attempting to negotiate in 2019 with an impossible demand. Clearly neither side seriously attempted to have an agreement by the amendable date. We wasted time and waited for something bad to happen. This time it did.

I’m not a company man. I voted YES. I’m right there with you all. We have only one path to travel and I’m as committed to it as anyone here. Not by choice or because I think it was a good idea. It’s simply the only option that remains.