Originally Posted by Ragtop Day

I think we are both mostly on the same page. I want everything on your list as well and our contract and the scope language within it gives us pretty good leverage when it comes to JV's. We can use that to our advantage when the company comes to us in a variety of ways.

The problem is that our measure of success with these agreements is currently very subjective. Are we increasing flying this summer because of the JV's or the economy rebound? Would our new international destinations work without AF or KLM feed? What equipment would we be flying on JFK-CDG or ATL to AMS without the JV's.. The answer is that we don't know how much better off we are with or without these agreements. I think we all know they make the company money, which is good, but how much flows back to our general good as a pilot group?

If our timing is right and we open section 6 in good times then we should see (and expect) great returns, some of which can be attributed to these ventures. But if our timing is bad and we are in a recession during sec. 6 then we probably won't see big contractual gains and what we allow in the JV doesn't pay off. Giving us a percentage of revenue allows us a tangible asset in the form of a check each quarter/year that will always be there. It is simply an outside the box way of increasing our total compensation.

I agree that taxes are an issue and with our governments current situation will become a bigger issue. More taxes always come with making more money, but no one will turn down a winning lottery ticket just because they have to pay the taxes on the winnings. One way to avoid the tax burden is to allow us the option to deposit this "bonus" directly into our 401k's like we do with our profit sharing.

As for the other contractual improvements, I agree that they need to be fixed. I would hope our union takes every opportunity to improve our current agreement. We have one chance with the company to negotiate any JV arrangement where as we have several opportunities in the course of the contract to LOA the other sections. In addition, 2012 is now not that far away and all that will be talked about then (not that I want it put off, just that it will come up anyway). Most of the stuff the company comes to the union about mid contract is relatively low dollar compared to a JV, when one comes up it is a very unique opportunity to capitalize. Lets not leave the potential for millions of dollars on the table for improvements we can aim for in other LOA's or worst case wait until 2012. On top of that some of the contractual improvements would no doubt be "on time cost" items. Twenty years from now pilots won't know or necessarily care that the company paid $1 million to fix (insert improvement here), but they will be watching the revenue numbers to see how much their check will be.

You say you want all the value to go towards protecting your job. The vary reason we enter into these JV's does that (if structured properly, of course). If the China deal comes to a JV, that will create more trans pacific demand, which will produce more block hours on bigger aircraft, which will produce a demand for more domestic feed, which should produce the need for more block hours on smaller aircraft, which will produce a need for more pilots--all creating job security, higher paying positions and hopefully profits.

We already have the scope protections in place to protect all of this. When the company wants a JV they are asking to relax a contractual item we already have in place. To assure a 50/50% split and other scope provisions we should not have to "pay" for that as we already have "paid" for the right to fly all of it. From a union standpoint, the ONLY reason we should enter into one of these agreements is to gain customers we would not normally have access to, e.g. inter-china connecting traffic.

The other unique scenario this suggestion creates is the opportunity for us a pilots to profit off the other side of the JV. Normally we only see the benefits of our 50%. We carry our domestic pax to a connecting city, where we fly half of them across the ocean and the other partner does the same. In this type of setup we would benefit from our share of the revenue that all the passengers create.

I think it is a good idea that warrants exploring. We will have one chance to get this kind of deal and develop an alternate source of income for our pilots. I am not suggesting anything radical like giving up job protections to get it, just that we not let an opportunity slip away. The China deal may or may not come to a JV, so I guess this is all speculation until something is announced. In the meantime lets focus our attention on fixing reserve, 23K and DC contributions!