FWIW I just called crew resources. They said the results probably will not be posted until late tomorrow (right on Buzz) or early Monday.

BD

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin bout!

I think they drop them on Friday, so most guys questions get answered on APC over the weekend before they have to answer the phones again on Monday. :)

By the way, LM became MEC Chairman in October 2005.

I guess. But no matter how I look at it, it still comes back to 3 main points for me:

1. Wether its called "debt" or not, we still pay 100% of it, we are still 100% on the hook for ALL costs related to it (except we might not get the depreciation write off, although you could argue that would be "priced in" but still) and not only are we on the hook for ALL costs, we are on the hook long term for those costs. IOW, it looks a LOT like debt to me.

But, "technically" its not debt, and we can fool those idiots in the investing world who only look at the debt column. They will see no "debt" and will be easilly fooled into thinking we are somehow better off, even though we are 100% on the hook for all debt costs and obligations...AND we will be paying someone else a profit for the privlidge (over and above their cost to finance the jets, which will be 100% paid for by Delta anyway).

Is the investment world really that stupid? Even if we get away with this accounting slight of hand for now, if we do it, everyone else will soon be doing it, so any advantage we get even if we do fool them won't even last a single CBA cycle anyway then back to square one, and that's best case scenario even assuming that the investment world can perpetually be fooled into thinking we are getting "debt free" jets (nevermind those irrelevant long term air tight pseudo lease-like agreements and additional profit margins we are paying for the trick in the first place).

2. Skywest (or Mesa or whoever) will get mainline help to get into the 100-200+ seat range (and hey, if its such an awesome concept and the investors are so dumb as to think we're not 100% on the hook for it as if it were debt, why not do it with widebodies as well!)

Is that REALLY somewhere we want to go, especially if its something we have to allow? Even if it works smashingly today...bottom line is we helped Mesa and Skywest get 737's, 777's, etc. ORLY?

3. If the impetus for all this is debt and keeping it "off our books" (even though we're still on the hook for paying 100% plus a new profit structure for the money changers, ****?) then I'm sure Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, etc will be more than capabile of creating whatever BS little shell company they need to in order to get us (or anyone else for that matter) whatever hardware we need and do so in whatever legal mumbo jumbo manner we need it done. IOW, we will NEVER, EVER, need another actual "airline", however virtual it is, to do this for us. If getting the jets of the future depends on debt being kept "off our books" then the manufacturers and credit/leasing companies will find a way to accompllish the exact same "zero debt" smoke screen that letting SKYW or Mesa doing it would. And again, all this assumes the investment world is not only that stupid today but always will be in the future to actually think that this new system of "off the books" debt is anything other than an illusion. Even if they will fall for it right now, the second someone actually does it either the jig will be up or everyone else will quickly move to do it and we will see no lasting advantage to it anyway. Oh and bonus, we're stuck with long term contracts that cover 100% of the long term costs we were pretending on avoiding in the first place.

Clarified your post.

Perhaps.. but guess what? It now becomes a bargaining chip. "Well guys.. if you want a pay increase.. you gotta give us 9 block hours/day."

Do you have a plaque and photographs on your wall commemorating the day? :D

I can help with Comair's piece of the DCI numbers...

In October 2005 Comair had 165 aircraft; 27 of them were 700s. We also had orders for 24 700s that Delta diverted to other DCI carriers.

Today Comair has 94 aircraft; 15 of them are 700s and 13 are 900s.

The only problem is that CBA's change. Somebody, somewhere will fly these with 2 man crews if they are allowed per regulation. Then the next CBA cycle or downturn or bankruptcy, etc the company just HAS to have 2 man crews to compete. And once it is gone it is never coming back. Remember there used to be three crewmembers in EVERY flight deck. Some unions held onto the third guy for awhile, but now 1/3 of pilot jobs are permentaly gone.

Gloopy,
As with the initial onslaught of DCI carriers financing jets and us taking jets off our balance sheet this will accomplish much of the same thing but with is flying it. It is blurring the lines between a lease and a fee. I have seen it done before to change a debt position and can be done in this case. I used the current regional airlines just as an example. In the end you are correct about the commitments for payments that DAL would have, but it would be accounted as a fee not as a asset payment.

Just something to ponder.