Originally Posted by slowplay

I cannot disagree with you more.

We could have "timed" ourselves into no merger. Remember $147 bbl oil just 4 months after the merger was announced? Remember every major air carrier furloughed pilots (UAL 1450, AMR has over 1800 out, CAL 147, ALA, even the regionals (DCI had over 1000 out). Had AMEX not agreed to the cash infusion, we'd have both been screwed.

That's not a lot of leverage in my book.

So both pre-merger pilot groups could be sitting back wondering when everyone was going to get recalled rather than how many we're going to hire. (The premerger NWA group complaining here wouldn't have been worried about newhires getting more DC than them, they'd be worried about when they were going to get a paycheck again.) Both could be sitting at real bankruptcy pay rates rather than the JCBA rates and 5.6% of the company in their accounts. On the Delta side we'd have opened section 6 in the heart of the airline recession. Great timing...

I'll pass on the leverage that you have to offer. We'll get to see a lot of who's right in the UAUA/CAL dance ahead of us. Merging seniority lists with a disparate number of guys on furlough would have been fun.....