While I appreciate your concern, I’ve done bankruptcy already. I’m aware how it works.

We’ll see over the long run what happens with trip construction, but I’ve seen less long sits since they started costing money a few months ago.

Maybe your name calling and misinformation that when called on you just ignore and move on to complain how you were wronged in a different way? No, that couldn’t be it.

the question is with the next 350 order, do we go ULR?

unfortunately the ULR really isn't a fix to our problems. The reason the 777-200LR worked so well is because it took the bigger engines and stronger structure of the -300ER and fit it to the smaller -200. This gave it an increased MTOW and thus longer range for the same payload.

the A350-900ULR does not do this. It still has the same (or similar) MTOW to the regular -900. It just has an extra fuel tank where the forward cargo bin is, but the extra gas is only useful if we significantly decrease the payload. This is why Singapore only has 160 ish seats on their ULR vs our 306.

what we would need is an a350-900 with structural enhancements that give it the increased MTOW of the -1000

Soft pay is a penalty for building trips with undesirable features. The optimizer now has to decide if it wants to spend the money on such features, or if it is more efficient to add staffing.

Ive already seen a noticeable improvement in trip quality in September since everything was implemented. Layovers over 12-14 hours have been the exception in the last several years, and now I’m seeing longer layovers are much more common like I remember them a decade ago. Same for extreme duty periods. Yes, EDP pay is nice when working a long day, but anecdotally I’ve also seen less of them in September than in recent memory.

As for the 350, we do have a full delivery schedule for the next 2+ years that will max our training capacity. Any order realistically can’t even be absorbed into our training pipeline until well into 2026.

Another data point - Emirates order, just announced this week, has deliveries start in August of 2024.

Deliveries at Delta in 2026 seems perfectly realistic if we announce this fall.

What I see is they don't get to participate in the schadenfreude that their predecessor's did. Their whole career they were told "one day, you'll be senior" while suffering in the NB while all the bling was poured into relatively few WB spots. Then one day they got there, and yes, they get the WB pay, but a lot of cool new pay toys went to the NB and not just only to the WB as their seniors did to them. "What? I was supposed to get all the attention!!"...it's a variation on the "I suffered, so should you" which was a pretty popular talking point by some of JB's friends during the UNA debate. When they say "you'll never understand what was given up", what they really mean is "you'll never understand what fun it was to sit on a high perch, cashing in on all the good deals, while warbling about how great the WB is and tsk tsking how bad you have it on the NB".

Some people are really tied up in the "I'm a pilot" mindset. Not just that, but the whole hierarchical rank thing that in their head places some above everyone else. Part of their "fun" is pointing out how good they have it while how "bad" their juniors have it.

Or a -1000…

while the -1000 would be a small payload/ range improvement, It would not be nearly as significant as doing what I describe. it would most likely still struggle on 15+ hour flights, just struggle a little less than a -900 would.

assuming we stick with AB (all indications seem to be that we will) I hope we get -1000s and are able to talk them into doing what I described with a -900.

or we could look at the 777X…but I doubt that’s gonna happen.

I don’t know that we could talk them into it if it’s not a product that they already offer unless we order the same iteration that Qantas is using for their project sunrise. But that would seem overkill for us and I doubt Airbus would offer it for what we’re willing to pay.

This seems like the answer.