The Delta pilot group did it right, IMO, up until they agreed to an AIP that was far short of the "generational" improvement that had been rumored. They folfded just as their leverage was beginning to accelerate.

A SAV isn't the end of the RLA path (just for clarification, a SAV is required by the SWAPA Constitution, not by the RLA, before going on strike). A SAV ratchets up the pressure on management by helping to establish the credibility of the strike threat posed by a work group. But there's far more pressure available to labor under the RLA beyond a successful SAV.

Pressure on management increases even more as a release from mediation becomes realistic because of what management knows is coming if the dispute is released from mediation.. Following a release from mediation, pressure on management dramatically amps up as passengers begin booking away from an airline that might soon go on strike. Then, in the extremely unlikely event that management is foolish enough to allow a dispute to go all the way to a strike, the pressure upon them goes stratospheric as they contend with losing more than $60 million dollars per day in revenue, not to mention the intangible hit to the value of the "luv" brand that would compound each day they allowed a strike to drag on.

In broad terms, we'd be foolish to ratify what management offers after a SAV but before the pressure on them truly starts revving up unless a TA satisfies every single one of our demands and then some.