Why, yes it did. There are many similarities between the events that gave birth to the RJDC and what happened yesterday. The irony of the Delta MEC using the threat of litigation as a justification to take action which gives birth to a real threat of litigation is not lost on many who have seen this play out before.

However, I do not expect things to go that direction due to the number of pilots involved, their relative inexperience and the fact that like the Frog in the proverbial pot, the heat is getting turned up rather slowly. Most people are really fuzzy on where things go from here.

If history is our guide, Delta pilots will suffer the greatest harm from our own misguided scope policy. When ASA and Comair were excluded, they grew explosively while Delta pilots hit the streets. Eventually ASA and Comair pilots’ own scope failures caught up with them and what management awardeth, management taketh away, and giveth to lower cost providers. Without effective union representation management's ability to whipsaw and destroy longevity knows no restraint.

Compass is currently bound by a special scope exemption which keeps them at a relatively uneconomic size of 36 jets. I expect that will change. We currently have a flow through which neither management or current ALPA is particularly fond of. I expect that will change. Management would like to raise cash and it was going to be difficult to spin Compass off with "Delta" pilots flying the jets. We've simply facilitated this transaction. My crystal ball says management is in Compass's yard with a "FOR SALE" sign and we're hammering into the soil for them.

It should be a campaign issue for Reps who voted for yet another sale of Delta jobs. Sure, the Reps will prevaricate and say this wasn't really a sale. After all, they've already indicated on the Delta south side that it was not worth anything to begin with and we still get to live in it (via flow down) when our seniority list sinks beneath the flood waters of economic storms and fleet rationalization.

Just remember to draw a line through the factual data points, even if those data points are years apart. Look back through history and see how it has worked out before.