Just to go back a little bit the question really is the current system vs a 1.5>80 system moving forward.

The overall big picture is for many of us we would not want a system that would decrease the need for current pilots below the current level.

I just thought about looking at one mature category to compare and picked the 320 in MSP. There are 546 pilots. 320 are Captains with 288 regular line holders and 32 on reserve with an ALV of 72 in Jan. FO's come in at 291 with 258 regular and 33 on reserve with an ALV of 77 in Jan.

Now right there you can see... oh btw I'm talking out my butt because I am such an outsider to the "system" it's not funny... but there are 29 fewer FO's flying the same trips thus by increasing the ALV by 5 hours you equal out the 29 pilot difference.

Another words, 5 more hours on the ALV decreased the need for pilots by nearly 30. Increase it by 15 hours and you've got 90 A320 guys that are not needed on the line holders alone.

So if you remove the ALV and have a system that encourages pilots to fly more for $$ and the ALV would probably find itself at say 83 hours (equals average month with FAA max of 1000 hours a year) and that would mean about 60 pilots less are needed on MSP320. That's 10% fewer than currently exist and take that system wide that's 1000 pilots (working off the 10,500 line flying pilots not the 12000 number) assuming reserve levels stay at the same numbers and not just a percentage.

Right or wrong about those numbers, just eyeballing it I don't want to see any more "efficiency" in the staffing numbers for a lot of reasons from the MD's it'd create in every category to the inability of the company to remotely handle even a minor IROPS to the detriment of the airline and us. Sometimes you have to have people, you just do.

The money should come from the pay tables and while it may for senior pilots not be as lucrative as 1.5>80 system I can live with that.