Originally Posted by Andy (Post 2385199)

International widebody flying prints money during good times. It flushes money down the toilet in bad economic times. While I'm very happy to be flying international widebodies at United, our. -400s were flying sub-20% loads across the Pacific during SARS. The cash bleed almost had us joining Pan Am, Eastern, TWA and other airlines in the trash heap of defunct airlines.

JV allows airlines to revenue share without the economic risks. It smooths earnings through good times and bad, increasing long term stability.

As for dominating LAX, I consider American's facilities the best. But even with that, they won't be able to dominate LAX. Delta would do better to set up an international fortress hub in SEA.

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 2385399)

When you look at the forecast growth of flying in Asia over the next 20 years, there is no reason Delta for to sit on the sidelines.

Giving our management a free pass with worthless scope is a critical mistake. Just as having over 800 RJs was an unnecessary self induced nightmare.

Sometimes you have to save management from themselves.

In my opinion.

Originally Posted by C130driver (Post 2385281)

Have you been to the Philippines? 5+ star hotel is dirt cheap, amazing service, cheap drinks and hundreds of beautiful women asking to be your girlfriend...

Originally Posted by svergin (Post 2385462)

Asking to be your girlfriend is one thing. Being loved "long time" is what you should be hoping for.

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 2385399)

When you look at the forecast growth of flying in Asia over the next 20 years, there is no reason Delta for to sit on the sidelines.

Giving our management a free pass with worthless scope is a critical mistake. Just as having over 800 RJs was an unnecessary self induced nightmare.

Sometimes you have to save management from themselves.

In my opinion.

Originally Posted by Andy (Post 2385652)

I understand what you're saying, but suggesting Delta management will buy a ton of widebodies is akin to suggesting that Southwest management will be buying a different aircraft than the 737.

I suppose DALPA could come up with contractual language that limits widebody JV flying but management would probably extract quite a bit from the pilots for that language.

Originally Posted by gzsg (Post 2385111)

As an old guy our almost worthless international scope language won't hurt me much. That being said, I will fight to improve it until I fly my last round trip to Sydney.

I hope the new Delta pilots are reading and paying close attention.

In my opinion this is the number one issue we need to tackle going forward.

Allowing management to outsource our international flying via JVs is not in our best interest, just like allowing over 800 RJs until our regional partners did over 65% of our domestic departures was not in our best interest.

United started SFO to Singapore last year and is now adding LAX to Singapore.

Please spare me the "we can't make money on international".

How did we get to over 800 RJs?

By line pilots repeating the excrement management was whispering in their ear.

"The RJs are saving our bacon!!!"

Originally Posted by n9810f (Post 2385861)

We can't make $ on Intl because we refuse to acquire the right kind of fleet. Relying on the 763 to cross the Pacific isn't a recipe for success. And all we see are UA, AA and nearly every other Intl airline flying the Dreamliner. We don't have that plane-type to fly these markets. All we have are generic Intl a/c to run into the hubs of our Intl partners.