I'm not quite sure whether you're concerned about guys riding the gravy train, or bemoaning the notion that Northwest guys are getting booted off the train. I had a (Delta) buddy that was fairly close to the action at the time of the merger, and he explained to me that NW had quite the fiefdoms going on. I understand some of the guys were well in their second decade, and some didn't have medicals to fly the line.

As a line pilot, I have little or no awareness about what's happening in Herndon. I assume this is a reference to Moak. I don't doubt that Moak eventually got to a point where he controlled committe appoitments closely. In fact, the charge against his predecessor was that he stacked committees with cronies, and would not answer to the MEC, that brought him to power. Now I'm being told the new guy answers better to the MEC, and maybe Moak didn't.

You know what I think? They all like to stack committees with cronies, and they'll all get there, given enough time. Much of what I see is a self-perpetuating system, and the only fights I can discern are those between individual factions to determine who will get to ride. I'm not moved very much when I read passionate pleas for putting better people, or creating redundant MEC structures, or perpetuating the paranoid World of Roberts that (I'm told) you lived under. I know it's a popular view to say that you had delightful, open, lively debates that were the hallmark of democracy. I've heard many wax poetic about what a quaint era that was, but when you speak to people in private, it sounds like it was the same ugly kind of knife-fight you see in jail documentaries.

So I couldn't care less about the color of the people getting botted off, because I think this whole thing rides on pilot participation. If the pilots don't show up at meetings, we're [****]'ed.