The airplanes we need going forward will cost Alaska or SkyWest/Republic/whoever just as much as they will cost DL mainline. Every penny. And I don't buy that MBA fantasy land accounting trick of "well if they operate it for us we don't have the debt" nonsense. If a C-Series flies in Delta colors, Delta will pay 100% of its cost including 100% of the cost of the debt and debt servicing. The only difference is employee costs and that when amortized into the overall cost is absolutely peanuts.

As for the XX Billion to replace such and such fleet, or the XXX Billion to replace almost everything, yeah I suppose if we replace an entire fleet in a day and pay cash then it would cost that much. Airlines have to buy planes and yes sometimes on a large scale. That is nothing new, it has happened too many times to count.

If we can't afford, and/or the debt is too much for us to get however many 787s, A320 NEOs, C-Series, 797s or whatever else we need then there is no way an outsourced provider will be able to afford them or the debt the come with either based on deals inked with us as their primary or exclusive means of paying for them in the first place.

If we give away more scope, of course whatever we give away will be outsourced. But that will be because of management's desire to leverage their bonuses on the backs of cheap SJS labor. But there is no way someone else can afford to get those very same planes, and fly them for us, if we can't afford to do it ourselves in the first place.

As for C12K, regardless of how that ends up, we will begin the discussion in a significantly better debt/credit situation either way.