I agree. I bet it goes to $50 and back to $90 by next year. That said, what then of the ME Airlines?

 

I honestly don't know. I would guess that the countries in question are committed to diversifying away from oil, and this only motivates them more. It does take a little bit of their advantage in having very new, fuel-efficient aircraft.

Also, I don't really understand the nature of their advantage in fuel costs in and of itself. Is it greatest when oil is cheap, or expensive? Do they refine enough in-country? Do they tanker fuel a lot?

Then there are economic conditions: since I don't know how much of an advantage they might have in oil/regulatory/labor, I don't know whether they get squeezed proportionately more than others, when economies are bad throughout the world. They're mostly set-up to carry people between Europe and Asia. If Europe is weak, the Euro is weak, Asia is OK, and their own oil revenues are down, I guess they become very, very eager to tap into our market, where the economy would be better, and the $ is going up.

I'm guessing that with a huge amount of orders, weakening local revenues, the ME carriers got bat-$hit crazy, and flood the trans-Atlantic with seats. They haven't shown any restraint in pushing their regulatory and geographic advantages. Until they really start really bleeding their owners' money, they won't stop. I don't know if we can afford to subsidize our international with healthy domestic, faster than they can subsidize their international with diminishing oil revenues. I doubt our BOD would let us try that game anyway.

What I'm really trying to say is: I have no idea.

 

Yep. That's the way it does it. You have a few choices to make it work.

1. Pick trips in reverse order. Pick the best trip last and the worst trip first. They will show up in EZBid in the proper order.

2. (My method) Pick trips in order of preference. Then, drag and drop them into the correct order.

3. Put them on one line. I think that EZBid was designed this way, but as PBS has changed, this method may not produce the desired result.

PM me if you have more questions.

Razorback one

 

First off, I didn't say anything about "on a percentage basis". I said our flying could go up as a result of this JV. I don't believe for one minute that Delta does JV flying just to screw the pilots, or shift revenue flights from Delta to the JV partner. They do it to expand their total presence in markets where they can't expand themselves due to slot restrictions (as with LHR) or the market doesn't justify us going it alone (as with other JV partners).

Of course, I wish every passenger in the world was on a Delta jet. But that's not reality, imo.

As for agreeing to it just to increase PS. NO, of course not to that too. But people I trust (MEC, Negotiating Committee, and ALPA E&FA) have all looked at this ten times (probably more like 100 times) as long as you or I, so if they believe it is in our best interests, I defer to them.

 

PG,

I would also defer to the negotiating committee on their knowledge of this or any agreement, but in NO WAY defer to them with respect to giving up items in our contract without getting adequate items in return, which is what we have done time and time again.

We have failed basic negotiating over and over again, but yet the trend continues.

 

I conversed at length with a negotiating committee member (well before he was in that position), and while he was a nice guy, cared about the pilots and seemed pretty selfless, he struck me as being incredibly naive. He spent time trying to tell me how great Anderson was and how management loved pilots and they were "on our side". After the trip, I realized we do not always have the sharpest tools negotiating and we were at the mercy of management showing up with shiny beads and free lattes. Loyalty in the union is rewarded with positions like this and Moak rewarded this guy well. He placed a a guy on the committee that would agree to anything management said.

 

This entire post is spin and disingenuous speculation.

"trickle down into increased profit sharing checks?" That's your spin? That's how you think we'll benefit from this JV and this TA?

That's absolutely pathetic.


So the NC negotiated this useless TA without any idea what the consequences would be?

you "suspect...?" That's great. I've got to ask: is your mission to further management's goals? Or is it to help dues-paying pilots get more money and more time off?

 

I agree with your first 2 paragraphs.

I don't agree with the last paragraph. I won't defer to anyone who won't give me any information on what I am deferring to them.

 

Different OPEC members need different fuel prices to fund their one trick pony economies. Off the top of my head I believe the ones most dependent on high fuel prices to get by are Libya, Venezuela, Iran.

Can you see a trend here? Well run economies? I think not. They want to cut back on production to raise the price. Actually, they want Saudi Arabia to cut back so the price will rise.

These countries can't see past next year and would have oil go to $200/barrel if it was in their power. The Saudi's are more sophisticated and also have the most proven reserves. They know that extended high prices will drive innovation and perhaps accelerate oil alternatives.

With hundreds of years of oil in the ground the Saudi's have a strong interest in keeping as many countries as possible dependent on oil for as long as possible.

Scoop - I read a book

 

Why do I get the impression that if "son of 9/11" happened soon, and our profits vanished, you would be among the first to criticize DALPA for not monetizing our PS?