If this industry and this company don't start making money, then they will be able to plead poverty at contract time. We already make more in direct compensation than most of the industry, and despite all the negative changes we've endured over the last few years our workrules on balance are still better. You can look at the "tremendous gains" those tough unions at AMR and UAL have extracted from their unprofitable companies as a guide... At DAL's investor day management correctly prioritized enhancing our revenue, controlling costs, and paying down debt with cash flow over the next three years. If they are successful in continuing to differentiate our business from that of our peers then we will see pay rewards. If not, we will be stuck in the same quagmire that envelopes our fellow pilots at other carriers that don't produce a suitable financial return. LUV, FedEx, and UPS don't pay their pilots more because they're better pilots or that management is more generous, it's because their business models throw off profits from which labor can extract value.


In a business sense Narita is identical to Frankfurt.

Delta was the second largest carrier in Frankfurt until Open Skies, serving that city from 9 different US locations with 15-17 beyond markets and 13 FRA based aircraft (767-200 and 727). Open Skies and the fragmentation brought on by hub busting point to point aircraft like the 767-300ER (for NRT the 787) killed the yield of the operation there. It was pretty hard to compete with Lufthansa once they had the UAL feed and a whole bunch more destinations and frequencies than Delta could offer. While any deal will stand or fall on its own merits, not having a corporate deal might not be so good for pilots.