Since we set a baseline back in 2019, seems to me that the down gauging Delta’s partners have done during COVID, and are forecast to continue to do, and the up gauging that Delta is currently doing make the decision to do block hours instead of seat miles obvious. Surprising that management agreed to it.

Is there a single one of our partner European carriers who has said they intend to send NB aircraft to the US? If trans oceanic narrow bodies were the panacea for our foreign carriers that some of you believe they are, why isn’t it common knowledge that they are including it in their business plan?

On the flip side, if we had to count their narrow bodies on one side of the ledger, do you think there’s a world in which we wouldn’t have to also count ours? Do we want to give growth credit on an equivalent basis to narrow body aircraft? What would we even be asking for?

I highly doubt management at Air France, KLM, or Virgin is are in cahoots with Delta management on this one and concealing their plans to conquer the ATS with narrow body aircraft after Global Scope passes, causing all our base are belong to them.

Plus, I remember reading at one time that the 321XLR did in fact have a 4700 mile test flight. They had to fly at something ridiculous like Mach 0.68, take no cargo, and fly an incredibly sparse cabin configuration. And now the airframe that did that can’t get certified because they were using the belly skin as the aux fuel tank wall without a second wall or safety liner to save weight.

Highly doubtful that aircraft ever enters commercial service with any reasonable seat configuration for anything but near Europe from the northeast US.

My simpleton interpretation right from reading the scope document is that even though NB flying is permitted, it doesn’t count towards any theater baseline. The company still has to maintain the BH floor. I get people are concerned, but Delta can’t simply NB their way outta this. BH have to be maintained. Think of how many NBs a JV would have to fly to make up for shifting from WBs. I don’t see a scenario where one flies so many profitably.

That’s how I read it too. I feel quite relieved they didn’t allow our NB to count.

I see your point and your concern. It sounds like you’re worried the XLR will be the new “international RJ” sacrificing payload for frequencies, and the new global scope doesn’t guarantee we would fly our share of international RJs where in the old scope language there was at least some protection with EASKs.

My opinion is the 321NEO or XLR will likely fly some of the shortest transatlantic flights. I am a skeptic that a partner airline will achieve a saturation level where it decimates our global flying, particularly of the trade offs they would need to make to achieve the deep Europe range. The MD11 barely made Japan, the 73N doesn’t do Hawaii well, the C-Series only barely can do LCY to NY.

Even if I’m wrong, does the new scope protection protect us better or worse against all the threats we face over the next 10 years vs current book? And if we kept current book, would the remedy for continued infractions with an XLR pay enough to offset the potential WB penalties paid under the new scope agreement? I can let the XLR threat “soak” a contract cycle and revisit. The wide body penalties in the agreement in front of us I want yesterday.

The obvious flaw is a partner flying one, two or three 321XLR's on a route they previously used a small WB. That's a reduction in WB flying for us.

With how popular the long range NB market is/is going to be, it's hard to believe they whiffed so badly on this.

Then why not have it in writing just to be safe? Are you so confident that it's not worth having on paper?

Did you not read the part about block hour floor? That has to be maintained. If it’s not, there are penalties. More wide body pilots. I guess delta could give away all the global flying if they’re willing to pay everyone on staff the highest pay rate for all flying.

​​​​​​I talking a few years down the road, the floor won't be relevant (hopefully) by then.

I hope I’m missing something. The block hour floor I saw in section 8 expires after 2025. Is there another one?

Oh so you’re saying we’re going to hypothetically lose wide body flying that we’ve hypothetically added above the block hour floor that is created when this TA is passed? I see. Interesting theory. To which I say..oh well, we’re right back where we started.