Originally Posted by Mesabah

I don't see any reason at all to merge any of the wholly owned carriers seniority lists together. Everything else it seems is already merged or in the process of being so. Here's the reasons for not merging the seniority lists in my opinion. First off compass is as cheap as feasibly possible for an airline, I doubt there is a cheaper regional in history; It uses most of the resources that other airlines have and pay for. A comair merger would cause the most senior paid pilots to move to the 76 seat jets all making premium pay vs the relatively junior lists at mesaba and compass. Labor relations would tank in any type of SLI between any of the carriers increasing costs dramatically as crew productivity decreases with morale. Finally, and most importantly, it ends the whipsaw in lowering crew labor costs.

If you ask me, I think we will see the status quo until several years from now, they may buy a turboprop in the short term. I don't see them canceling the republic contract unless they can get out of the fact republic can stick them with the aircraft lease balances, or they can wait three more years and DAL is free and clear of them.

As far as XJ goes. I was told by a manager that deals with saab aircraft leasing company directly, he said delta got rid of the saabs because senior management believes the saab does not represent a quality DAL product...whatever that means................