No matter what you do or don't agree with.........that there is funny.......and creepy, thanks for tonight's bad dreams Check:eek::D

Or we could go from 717 mainline jets plus 88 B717s for 805 jets. That would be 38 jets above the 767 base. 38 X 3=114 which would easily allow 255 76 seaters and 0 70 seaters.

Now 255 76 seaters is less then 325 76 seaters. But, the ratio is now in place. It wasn't before. And while you've calculated that we "could" maintain the 1.56 BHR without growing, that doesn't stop the fact that we could be shrunk below that ratio of block hours after they pump and dumped us. The 1.56 BHR is protection we didn't have before. Would it really be more expensive to just park the DC9s and 30+ 55XX series 757s. Or the 320s?

So I guess whether the BHR protection is worth 70 more jumbo RJs is where the difference lies. I voted NO becuase I couldn't stomach signing off on 70 more large RJs. But I think this contract is pointing us in the right direction.

We can be shrunk below what we are now anyways, the ratio doesn't stop that, it just means they get jets proportionally parked. The ratio doesn't guarantee a minimum mainline number, nothing did.

But I don't think giving up the minimum fleet language from the old PWA was a concession on the part of the company. They can grow the 76 seat fleet now without growing us or growing us a fraction of what the old pwa required.

Hence, that ratio needs to come up.

History lesson...that pay rate was won when DAL got the 2000 United + 1 pay rate. The United pay rate was a straight out bribe to get the UAL pilots to accept the proposed UA/US merger that never got off the ground.

Its also the pay rate that put UA into bankruptcy after which DAL did a "Me, too!" filing the day before the law changed to keep airlines from unilaterally dumping pension plans.

One could make the argument that pay rate put you into bankruptcy court, too.

No, what put us in bankruptcy court would probably take me ten pages or more to write. Also add in the massive expansion of the LCC's with pilots willing to work for peanuts.

True, but the BHR prevents mainline from shrinking while regionals grow. Isn't that what happned after 9/11? It prevents huge utilization of the jumbo RJs while parking mainline aircraft. Our old contract didn't provide that.

Well, your negotiating committee chairman has been re-elected.

As line pilots, our ability to make gains will depend entirely on our ability to read this kind of absolute BS, half-truths and scare tactics and see it for what it is. This is the way management used to speak to us. Now it's the way our union leaders speak to us. Control opinion through scare tactics and propaganda. So far, we've shown them it works. I truly hope we soon show them that we only deal with the truth...and vote out the rest.

Carl

You're right, it absolutely would be an issue if the 50 seater was a threat, which it was post 9/11. It's not now. We had a cap on the airplanes that were the real threat and the 50 seaters were/are on their way out.

I just don't think the 50 seater was a threat even if it had better CASM. It takes up slots and gates, it's small and it's uncomfortable. It's just not bi-winning.

The thing about a pump and dump, to get to 255/0 76/70-seaters under the old PWA from where we are now would've required going from 720 jets to 806 while parking 102 70-seaters and then dumping mainline back down.It seems an awfully laborious, capacity growing and expensive way to have 255 76-seaters instead of 153/102 as they have now. I'd hate to be on those investor calls.

The easier way would be to use the 717s you already were going to acquire as leverage to drop the 806 requirement and throw in a ratio set at status quo at mainline : DCI@450 jets.