That position is populism. The PWA wrt to the JV does not have noncompliance yet. That said, the non-compliance was not due to any labor cost differentials. AF flew what they flew because of French labor law. Changes in the French labor law allowed Air France to pull down lift during their restructuring, and brought them closer to compliance.

My first point is why it was not released, your point is that it plays well for DAL and RA. I will state that pilot costs though disparate on some level, are not the motivator and one of the lower costs for Airfrance wrt to whether or not they pull gauge. I will also go on record stating that there is no discussion and or motivator to "incentivize" DAL to keep flying here by "shooting under the bow" when it comes to our pilot costs vis a vis a JV partner. The profits and losses are shared in bundle 1. Its an all in number that includes pilots.

I know you know that.

OK, spelled out:

A. Virgin has no money
B. Virgin has an outdated fleet of inefficient 4 engine jets
C. Delta owns 49% of Virgin
D. Virgin's pilots are a lot cheaper than ours
E. Delta's been talking up the Virgin brand, even in comparison to it's own brand
F. Delta has not ben reporting results from any of these subsidiaries separately
G. ALPA is in scope negotiations
H. We have a JV with Air France KLM
I. Air France pilots are believed to be cheaper than ours
J. Delta has never complied with the production balance on our Trans Atlantic JV
K. Noncompliance has cost jobs
L. There are no plans to fix the production balance deficit
M. Management typically monetizes scope violations
N. ALPA considers scope to be transactional
O. Network decisions are made with our partners' needs in mind,
P. Reference GOL
Q. Virgin has a cash operating deficit
R. We have the smallest widebody fleet of our competitors
S. The aircraft we have ordered have a shorter payback time on their CapEx
T. We're still buying relatively expensive RJ's
U. The regional carriers are ordering 100 to 160 seat platforms
V. ALPA is getting squeezed on the top and the bottom
X. Any time labor has gotten between Richard Anderson and a jobs transfer, labor has lost
Y. My crystal ball told me to forget about widebody flying in this career
Z. I'm tired of APC if all it does is personal attacks ... shiny airplanes, scope debates, and underboob rule.

To some, results are actually secondary to that emotional high of the blood lust. (PD for example) Working with management and producing those results are not nearly as satisfying as punching management in the mouth and achieving a "better" result, even if that result comes at a price.

But whether civil or not, nothing... not one thing... is accomplished on these and other web boards. These places have zero value other than as a virtual fight club. We are all in the second standard deviation here whether pro alpa or pro doughnut, and minds will not be changed by either side. So don't try to make this dump anything more than it is: a distraction from other things and times.

Populism isn't always wrong.

Delta has been writing it's share of the checks for the Air France and now Virgin operation. It would seem easy enough to have simply stated, "Nous ne paierons pas pour non-conformité."

I am not convinced that any of us has any visibility into how Delta allocates flying other than what they tell us. It is pretty obvious a manager is not going to publish "we have sought illegal self help and transferred your flying to our other subsidiaries because they were cheaper."

Further, even the owners of the Company can dig out precious little about the cash flows between partners. Every conference call has questions about revenues and costs which go unanswered.

It gets to my basic premise of "what is Delta's core business?" You were one of the first to get folks to broaden their minds to the idea that Delta's core business increasingly does not involve the Delta pilots.

The point being, we are foolish if we don't consider the converse of all these scope deals we do. Management would not value the transactions if there was not a material gain. Further, when management plans to violate scope (as we see numerous objective indications, like aircraft orders and EASK deficits) we need to be thinking beyond the next trade.

... and yes, I know you know that :)

Bar,

I don't disagree with your points but where do we have influence in that list? Maybe indirectly on some but your points M/N are where the rubber meets the road so to speak. Tell me some out of the box thinking, how else are we supposed to get anything out of a contract violation if not to monetize it? If we negotiate stronger language what's to keep the company from violating that and then we are back at the same point...

Oh, and if this hasn't been mentioned before, I heard that RA decided to delay the RFP decision/order until December because of Airbus' decision to make the A330neo.

Denny

It hasn't changed from Mr Woolman's days. The world around us certainly has, and the methods for implementing that core business has changed. It's business. Grow or die. The case study is SWA. Let's see how successful that company is going forward with the same business model run in the same old way. We can have this discussion in a few years....

If you guys would spend just half the time you take to come up with insults, by instead looking for pics of hot chicks, or coming up with great stories, or making up fantastic rumors, you would distract more people. Ie. you would have a larger audience.

As it stands now, I spend the majority of my time on here reading the first one or two sentences of a post, moving on, because its the same bs, only to find that the whole page is full of "union this vs. union that" crap.

Request:

Less union debate.

More hot chicks, funny stories, and wide body rumors (Boeing), please. :)

T Square,

The change since Mr. Woolman's day is that businesses can both grow and die simultaneously. Comair had over 5 billion in total Delta investment. It died while Delta continued on with little notice.

My point is, when Daddy starts abusing the children, Momma better watch her back.

It is ridiculous for any of us to assume that a transfer of flying to a cheaper entity within Delta's core business had nothing to do with the fact they are less expensive.

Comair, Mesa/Freedom, even ACA were corporate whack jobs in favor of newer, cheaper, children. Why would we ever assume we are safe?

I've alwayswanted toknow why can't Virgin use the EX-IM bank to buy airplanes from Boeing then sell the jets to Delta?

Ditto!!! Oh yeah and the last line too!

Denny