You would think that with the Arbitrators decision having been made on the Scope issue, both sides would have an incentive to head to the negotiating table to wrap this thing up. With all economic proposals on table, scope seems to be the roadblock. With the Arbitrator's decision in hand for both parties:

a) Management should realize that a line has been drawn in the cement by the Arbitrator decision. They get no more 70 seat jets with CAL code in the hubs thus preventing seemless integration of flight operations. Jeff S. realizes he needs to work out the scope issue before his merger spins out of control and merger equity is wasted as in the case of US Air. Jeff S. needs to compete against Delta and the well-merged machine they have created.

b) JNC realizes they have some leverage going forward and knows contract can be completed with small change in scope (again just my opinion) and strong JV provisions. Yet strong pilot sentiment and polling prevents a change in current stance of RJ flying so the facade and fist banging continues. If NC position is changed to allow current amount of 70 seat RJ's to remain on property, then the NC may be able to get a TA to throw over to the pilot group. The JNC may be inclined to work through the issue knowing that money value of contract is wasting with each day passing and the NMB may not allow a strike anytime soon.

Is a TA going to be in the near future with both parties at the negotiating table in Denver or is it going to be negotiated by the NMB a year down the road?

In the end, I believe were going to end up with the same scope results just at a different time period.