Would it have made you feel better if I had said effective 1 January 2016 instead of starting? The point is that Delta got paid for the entirety of 2016 at the higher rate.

In January 2016, United agreed to a $301/hour rate starting February 2016. So it was three months higher than United. Feel better?

Even worse, in July 2015, Delta turned down a TA that had their highest rate starting January 2016 of $292/hour and yet we accepted $287 after that. And what did Delta end up doing instead? Not to mention that those 11 months in 2016 not only eventually paid higher, they counted toward the next amendable date.

The part of my post that you left out or ignored was that if we had considered giving up the A plan for new hires as the company wanted, we could have done better as others here are arguing for now.