Originally Posted by Lifeisgood

You are amazing SF! You were promoting the substandard TA for months and now you are a hero in the shining armor!

Originally Posted by Lifeisgood

Not convincing. A few years ago you were calling a fantasy the current payrates + PS and we got it!
It's not about what you think the reality now is, it's about the choice of adjectives you used, that's all. I am sticking with my definitions of "fair", "fantastic" and "even more fantastic".

Originally Posted by sailingfun

Point to a single post where I ever said that. My reference has always been that total pilot costs must fall within a reasonable range of our main competitors or it won’t pass muster with the NMB. I have posted and believed going back to our exit from bankruptcy that gains have to be made by dragging our competition up with us. Amazing how that worked out isn’t it!

Originally Posted by HTBH

Speaking of Joint Ventures....

I met some nice South Africans recently down south in the Caribbean area...

During the chat I didn't mention I was an airline pilot until later in the conversation. Was asking how they got down there. They said they flew Delta from J-Burg, then had an 8 hour plus delay in Atlanta to get on an AeroMexico flight to their final destination (a destination we fly to). I asked why they didn't put you on Delta the whole way with less time in Atlanta and they said their travel agent was only given that option. Now I realize some of that may beyond their understanding based on times, connections, etc.. but they seemed plenty capable of paying for a Delta only ticket. They also said that (as anyone who has traveled on multiple carriers internationally can probably attest too...) things got screwed up due to the change of airlines. Visa's and baggage became an issue. They got a lot of "not Delta's fault...talk to AeroMexico" and "not AeroMexico's fault...talk to Delta" as their answer to their Visa and baggage problems.

So at some point, we ("we" being Delta corporate) may be saving money this way. But we ("we" being Delta pilots) are definitely losing out. And our customers (that pay our salaries...) are getting a substandard product based on the experiences I've been told about first hand.

And yes, I should probably post this in a JV thread, but it fits here quite nicely into the discussion on JV's

Originally Posted by sailingfun

Why promote fantasy. Reality is all that matters.
The Narita hub sounds like a great idea. Will it be able to generate a profit with modern aircraft overflying Narita? What would happen if the Japanese government were to open a second international hub closer to the city and kill the Narita yields? Could you still run a profitable hub? You can’t move it if you don’t because you will never get 5th freedom rights anywhere else.

Originally Posted by JamesBond

There is still a lot of heavy iron in NRT. A bunch in United colors. Everyday.

Originally Posted by Baradium

Right now United isn't exactly the poster child for an efficient operation either. The original post was about opening a hub in PVG though, we don't have the 5th freedom rights to do it anyway so I think that really does qualify as fantasy to think that we can affect that through our contract negotiations.

Originally Posted by JamesBond

Travel agent? Seriously?

They have this thing called 'the internet' Maybe they don't have it yet I suppose.

Originally Posted by HTBH

Not sure if your comment is directed at me or the customers who I spoke too. It’s a whole different world out there for travel when you get outside of the US a lot of times.

They said it was a multiple holiday all over the Caribbean that included hotels and transfers and everything else. So they paid an agent to do it. You’re probably used to handling all that stuff. They weren’t. And like I said in my post...they seemed to be more than able to handle the cost of a Delta ticket vs a competitor. The fact that travel agents are seemingly being pushed to use our JVs is the issue. If the travel agent is going that way then the individual customer with internet access will probably be focusing on the cheapest price as well. Which will probably be our JVs.

Originally Posted by Baradium

There's no requirement that our costs "pass muster" with the NMB for a contract to come into play.