Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver

I think you are way overstating the effect that pilot costs have in the grand scheme of things. According to APA's fact sheet from when they were asking for a partial restoration back to 1992 buying power (~50% increase), the effect on CASM at AA would have been less than 1/2 cent. Look at how much of a typical ticket price is represented by pilot costs. It's not a make or break thing for the airline. They have all kinds of large expenses that cannot be forecast precisely. Things like fuel prices, weather impacting multiple hubs at the same time multiple times throughout a particular year, etc. These are things that cannot be completely planned for, which means they have to adjust... they have to find a way to make it work. Those become priorities for them. Apparently their own compensation is a priority too. We need to make fixing our pilot compensation a priority. Unfortunately, DALPA has spent the last several years setting the tone that this does not need to be a priority... that's it's not that big of a deal. And if it's not a priority to us, then it's certainly not going to be a priority to them!

Arguments like yours just make this worse and, IMO, work against our ability to get the improvements we so desperately need. I know that's not your intention... but it is the way I see it.