Dang, I won't be there. We could tip a beer in celebration of the Gators gettin spanked by Georgia.

Carl

I actually talked to RA when he flew on my plane from ATL to DCA. I asked him about all of the new Skyteam members and codeshares, and why that was good for us. He stated we can't fly intra China, so China Eastern (I think that was the last one we allowed in?) will gather people up inside China and take them to Hong Kong or Shanghai, and then we will fly them to Detroit. He said we can't get in there to many of the smaller Chinese cities due to lack of landing rights, but we still want to fly our big planes from the bigger cities full. He then said Africa was very profitable and that we would be doing a lot more there someday. After that he had to go. He seemed very knowledgeable, and friendly of course.

YEAH baby YEAH!

That aspect of code sharing I absolutely understand and have no problem with as long as our interests are protected. I have no problem code sharing with China Eastern when they do intra-China flying to markets we would never, ever fly to ourselves, and link up to bidirectional feed making both our airline's planes more full. What I am concerned with China Eastern is how will we divvy up the US-China seat/weight kilometers, etc. tat are part of the code share in question? What if they want half? More? What about the other current and future code share partners in that region? Do we split our flying with everyone? You can only half your half so many times. Do brand new start ups all around the globe deserve to split flying to and from the US with DL just so that we can code with them inside their own countries? I don't think so.

I worry it could become an AK on steroids where they do their flying and then we see them being given our flying all the while being told how its good for us. AK was supposed to be a reasonable code share where each fed the other pax with flying the other couldn't do. Instead its devolved into a large 737 DCI that has directly caused mainline DL stagnation and shrinkage at the narrowbody level. Some AK routes we should code share on, but some we need to roll back big time and do the flying ourselves. The LAX-SEA, BOS-SEA and other shutouts are just indefensible. As we work to fix that issue of management code share abuse, we need to make sure the new foreign ones don't turn into wide body DCI doing flying we could and should be doing...or worse...flying we used to do but gave to them.

Yep-it will be the mgmt way to cut costs-find outsourcers willing to do what you do for cheaper.

Of course he is correct. It is very smart to code share from smaller cities to the major gateways in countries like China, Brazil, Australia, etc. Feeding our flights in countries where we have access issues makes a ton of sense. The AS code share is different in some respects, and the AF JV is a different animal completely. These Intra-country code shares make a ton of sense and are a great way to feed passengers in to our global network.

Remember that a Bag "Fee" is classed as an expense and is not taxable. It goes strait to the bottom line and is actually more profitable as the taxed ticket value is less. USA Yesterday ran an article on this a few months back. Fees are a great way for airlines to keep all (or at least more) of the money charged to the passenger.

I hear Carl is a good ol fashion Capn and never allows the FO's to buy any beer!
Tell me it is true!

Honest question: since "everything comes at a cost," could we give up the money paid to ALPA by the company in the next contract? It seems like paying them from dues money would eliminate a conflict of interest. They are obviously eager to see management desires fulfilled since management is paying them a very comfortable FPL. I would rather use that negotiating capital on something else (like scope recapture) and pay ALPA from dues instead. Thoughts?