Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

tsquare,

The reason we're so convinced that we'll have retirements on the NWA side has nothing to do with opinion, and everything to do with Federal law. Let's say that no NWA or DAL pilots want to retire until 65 because the new Delta is just too cool to leave. Everyone's birthday is an absolutely known quantity. Thus everyone's MANDATORY retirement date is also a known quantity. When you do the math, NWA has a much greater retirement rate for the next 5 to 10 years than does DAL. This is not my opinion, it is math and math is stubborn.

As far as DAL's growth strategy....I'll be looking forward to see how DAL management makes the business case for that. From what I see, ticket prices are going to have to go up - and a lot. That will pull a lot of people out of airline seats, and those seats (along with the employees that service them) will have to be parked. If DAL management truly thinks that this is the enviornment from which they can grow, then DAL is in very big trouble. Fortunately for the DAL employees, I think DAL management is "fibbing" when they say DAL has a growth strategy. I believe that rhetoric is strictly reserved for getting this merger through Congress, then business reality will set in.

Carl