RockyBoy

Kinda what I was thinking in my original post on giving them something. If we saw our -400's being painted in JAL colors I think we would expect something in return. I'd bet the JAL guys feel the same way. Since we will have to negotiate the JV scope language with them, I'm sure they will come asking for some of the Narita stuff we do to offset any of the trans-pac flying we may get from them.

Hawaii50

Good call dude.

Tomcat

I'd have to agree.... Kudos to the CR folks for powering through this, but maybe time to look at the process.

NuGuy

Going to agree with Shiz here.

If the same happened to us, we'd be unlocking the red button.

Nu

newKnow

Agreed.

I think a good place to look is to see what happened wihen NWA had their financial issues in the early 90's and KLM held some of the purse strings. I wasn't around then, but I did fly with some guys who wound up going over there to fly 747-400 FO as cruise pilots when they were furloughed. I don't know what happened with the routes. But, I do know when I got here/there, our guys were pretty hawkish about everything being flown between the two contries being flown 50/50.

shiznit

Any of you FNW's know what the limits of the 5th freedom rights are? Is it specific countries or just a specific number of departures per day/week?

Anyone remember what the book value of the DAL stock the pilots was when it was issued???

JAL does a NRT-YVR and NRT-DEL and didn't know if that is something that could be done via that authority.

Not that I advocate taking the flying but would it even be a possibility?

Long term this is good for DAL....short term not so sure.....

Professor

You mean like when we signed the joint venture and relinquished all JFK-CDG flights to AF? Or pulled one ATL-CDG in the summer so that AF could do it?
Or any other number of fights affected in both directions by the JV?

Let us not forget that if JAL does in fact hand over some of their trans-pacific flying into North America it will probably not be without us handing over some of the fNWA routes to them as well. Granted, the ones we stand to gain are much higher yield routes.

Also, let's not forget that there is a world outside of north america that does actually travel to Japan...Like all of Europe. JAL jumping on with AF and SkyTeam is a great thing for them. The only language I heard spoken in Japan, in the three years I lived there, with the same frequency as English was French. The Japanese love France almost as much as they used to love the US. And yes, there is a deep irony in that fact that isn't lost on me.

Solid European feed and rev sharing would be a boon for JAL.

////

On a separate note, do not forget that M&A requires a certain mindset and corporate structure in order to execute them properly.

M&A can also be helped by momentum. Clearly we have that at Delta at the moment. Buying AS and a JAL JV would shore up our network holes as they currently stand. If I were mgmt, I would see no reason to capture the elements required to execute a grand strategy now. The price of these carriers/aircraft on the market are not going to go down from here.

Lufthansa is a good recent example of an airline that started buying other airlines and has just kept going. They are profitable to a sickening degree at the moment.

Clearly the market now believes that our corporate structure is well equipped for M&A activity, with SoC behind us it appears that this management team has pulled off the least bloody merger in modern aviation history.

We'll see if they can screw the next few moves up or not.

freightguy

I recently ran into an ex-NWA guy in AMS who chose to stay with KLM. He seemed pretty happy with his choice. I think most came back after the furlough and a handful stayed with KLM.

But US immigration rules would not allow to bring over JAL pilots if we get some of their routes and aircrafts unless we open a pilot base out of NRT or get a waiver from US immigration (Just like KLM did for the furloghed NWA pilots years ago). But then comes the question of seniority and equipment.

Well...something our union should look into if we proceed via this route. We should never throw another pilot group under the bus for personal greed. JAL pilot group is an upstanding, well payed and unionized group and they deserve our support if our road leads down to their aircrafts and routes.

RockyBoy

Yep, I agree. If we are going to do the AK thing, we should do it now. I'd imagine a merger with them would be very easy for the integration teams to pull off. The teams are still in place, know exactly what to do, and it is a common fleet type which should be very easy for them. Maybe they will give us another 5% restoration for "supporting" the merger.

shiznit

Great points...

But how about another 17%!!!!
5% in 2010
4% in 2011
4%+4% in 2012 ***due to negotiations opening***