Originally Posted by Truman_Sparks

Its certainly not just you. This statement is right on the mark. It looks like JA was spot on with his 4 options, as the expensive ones alwayshave a target on their backs in this Regional Airline model. It is for that very reason that Mesa will survive, and Skywest, Pinnacle and Mesaba will flourish while ASA, Comair and ExpressJet have and will flounder. We are now feeling the punishment for being expensive (not all of that is to be blamed simply for polit wages). The other reason for ASA's future pain is that we are not players in the 900 market. This has been my gripe with management as the trend in future growth is in that market, as 50 slowly get replaced...........but again, it goes back to cheapest vs more expensive. So, ASA takes it's lumps now, unless we want to take steep cuts and undercut those that are getting the growth.

Not much ALPA can do about this. They got us what we asked for, despite we being told that we would stagnate or even shrink if we got it. We gambled and lost, and are getting the exact future JA predicted us. Nobody is going to give any money or work rules back to undercut Pinnacle and Mesaba, are they. So, we will watch our company brothers and sisters hit the street while we watch others grow.

I'm in no way advocating any type of pay cuts, but I'm just pointing out why we are here. The only way to get growth now would be to tell Delta we will fly 90's for 50 seat rates, and give back things like trip rig, min day,etc... Without that, we have a big target on all our backs.

The only thing I think ALPA needs to ensure is that we maintain our 80% ATL flying if we still meet the metrics.