My branded flights are largely FULL at this point, rare if we have more than 2 or 3 seats open (SAN is always FULL!, Long Beach and Reno too).

Every person I know who has flown on a Branded flight tells me how great the service is; fuel is hedged at $2.40 a gallon, JR has landed huge community grants for service and training..... those people saying Branded is a hole usually don't operate in Branded and still pledge allegiance to Continental, if not believe they are Continental.

I believe the best bet is to continue Branded as JR states until the fall, and re-evaluate the service. Even if a furlough took place (which XJT has not offered to their pilots to this point), I would recommend taking on the additional airframes and EXPANDING the branded service. A temporary furlough might actually save XJT pilots and promote the expansion into our own venture. The current plan calls for a large expansion of our charter servece (and it apparently is a big revenue source)

We are all just pilots here with no true statistics on where the money comes from. I just fly the plane, and have minor input on work rules via ALPA votes. SIMPLE - believe in XJT management, they have protected us time and again from concessions and furlough - this is one management group that I truly believe has our best interest at hand, and is not adversarial with the MEC.

SKW has simply tried to press a hard sell to a company that hasn't expressed an interest in selling themselves. No-one is parking 50 seat jets idle in the desert, and SKW needs 205 airframes to secure the CAL contract. XJT is in an excellent supply/demand situation.... AND HOLDS FIRST RIGHTS TO LEASE ANY AIRFRAME released fromt he CPA.

BRANDED IS TAKING OFF; NAME RECOGNITION IS HERE!