I am buying the statement that "O" doesn't intend to use STV to solve the manning shortfall. But, there's no contractual language to prevent it.

{Insert your favorite teen/college age male promise here}

Not a labor lawyer, but, it's hard for me to imagine the labor laws in HKG are more restrictive than those of the US. In the case of CDG, absolutely believe that CDG wouldn't have opened w/out a promise from us to abide by RLA versus French labor laws.

IMO-Tax equalization is there to protect the company, not the company trying to help us out. The taxman doesn't like it when people dodge paying taxes and this is one way to keep the taxman happy from the company's perspective. Absent the LOA, don't know how FedEx would have handled it. But, I can easily see the company giving the govt(s) a list of the pilots domiciled at HKG. I can easily see the PRC comparing the VISA list with a list of those paying taxes. And, not sure how the PRC would handle it-but I am quite confident I wouldn't want to find out.

IMO the PRC wouldn't have allowed us to operate a Hub w/out pilots being domiciled there (eg Keep the SFS domicile open and just DH to/from. Although, I think the manning levels would have been better)

IMO opinion, FedEx was going to open a domicile w/w-out the LOA agreement.