Originally Posted by
Whidbey
Also heard it said that many folks in high places felt Alaska was just too expensive. Isn't there a lot to be said for not buying the cow when you get the milk for free?
Other than the standard 717 and MD-88/90 cockpit upgrade talk, have also heard of couple of the instructors discussing JAL 747 rumors. None of them claimed to have any real inside gouge, though. This rumor seems to have died.
Speaking of a potential Alaska merger, How would that effect Delta folks if the SLI went close to how it went with Northwest? Anyone have good info on age distro of the AK pilot group? I am also curious how it might effect folks trying to get out west that were hired at Mother D before the merger.
Wouldn't securing Alaska let us build Seattle more aggressively as our gateway to Asia, resulting in more 767 work out of Seattle?
Everyone on here seems fascinated by the possibility, but would an Alaska merger be good or bad for the Delta pilot group WRT seniority? Are we hoping this happens or hoping it doesn't?
I think that an Alaska merger would be great for Delta as a corporation if it could be done using very little cash. It would give us the capacity we need in the West without increasing capacity and diluting pricing power out there where margins are already very thin. The codeshare we now have does most of that, but there are alot of overlapping costs that could be eliminated in a merger.
As far as how a merger would go for the Delta pilots is anyones guess. It would go to arbitration and from the past few mergers it would most likely go category and class ratio's. What most people have said is true that widebody guys would most likely take no hit and the narrowbody guys out west would face the most risk to their QOL. However, with a merger I could easily see lots of SEA growth. SEA could have the potential to become the 3rd or maybe even the 2nd largest hub if we merged with ALK.