How many times have you seen the usual ALPA supporters on here and on the DALPA Forum make fun of APA asking for partial restoration? How many times have you seen excuse after excuse (I guess it's reason after reason in your book) why we cannot get large increases in our pay? Don't forget that we are digging out from a 42% pay cut that we took just prior to and during BK. The straight math on that is a 73% increase from that point just to get back to square one (without inflation). I know you know that. But the kinds of increases that this MEC seems to think are appropriate just don't add up EVER to restoration of the buying power Delta pilots enjoyed for decades prior to 2004. I'll elaborate a little more on that below.

Like I've said before. Wanting it is one thing. Actually setting it as your objective, stating it as your objective, and building a plan around that to achieve it is quite another thing. I see no reason for our MEC to keep this objective a secret. So that only leaves me to believe they have given up on restoration and that their actual objective is something well short of that. There's a big difference between telling folks (especially your own pilots) what we're trying to achieve and rhetoric. But it's real convenient to call it rhetoric if you're trying to come up with an excuse for not saying it.

You bring up inflation. With inflation marching on, we simply cannot afford to get traditional type increases. When you're digging out of such a huge hole and have made very little progress after 7 years of digging (and 7 years of inflation)... well that just makes the required increases even larger. It scares me to death that our DALPA negotiating committee is going to open and then settle for something far short of restoration. This MEC's posture and public statements leave me with no other conclusion. C2012 is basically the ball game for many of us and will set the tone for many years to come. We cannot afford to lose! If DALPA will not aggressively seek restoration for us, then I would not hesitate to replace them with someone who will. I'd rather try and fail than to give up and accept defeat from the start. Makes it a little easier to look at yourself in the mirror...