Answering that question is a bit like answering what is a house in Las Vegas going to be worth 5 years from now. Any answer to that question will have to start with "It depends......". The variables are so many it's impossible to know with any detail what it would be worth. The only thing you can say is that looking back to 2006, at the peak of the boom, is worthless, and looking at prices now at the trough is also worthless. Mostly the answer to that question is based on market forces, forces that an individual homeowner has no control over.

For us, the answer to the question is also "It depends...." The market forces that will shape our contract demands will mostly center around what other pilot groups get in the next couple of years and how much money the company is making. There are market conditions that would make C2K rates impossible and there are market conditions that would make C2K rates woefully short of the mark. Setting some target now is pointless.

Despite what M88 Driver says, no one in ALPA makes fun of the APA, it is just we hope they do something to move the market forward. They have completely failed to do anything the last few years, despite being in Section 6. So far this year, AMR corp has lost $373 million and probably will report a flat 4Q. The 3Q net profit was their first in 2 and half years and it was still one quarter. Yet they have been stuck on contract demands that would increase AMR's costs over $1.5 billion per year. Seriously, I want to hear how you think that disparity will ever get reconciled. Rather than choose an arbitrary target, maybe the APA could move forward with more modest demands with some performance kickers that could automatically give them more raises when the company rebounds.

If we set some target completely removed from market forces, then we could either undershoot what is possible, or we could be like the APA and overshoot the market and sit in the penalty box for years on end.

So the final answer to your question is "It depends...." Probably not very satisfying but it's the only one that is the truth. Surely it would be easy to make some artificially high target and proclaim myself a better pilot than the rest of you, but I would just be lying to you. Others will go ahead and give the phony bravado, but if they know for sure what the market forces are going to be two years from now, they should retire and trade stocks. They will be billionaires quite shortly.