1) Maybe we're confused about who we're including in the 10 to 1. I'm saying roughly around 5-ish CA's and 5-ish FO's per airplane. When we were down to 49 Saabs, we had 520 pilots. This is slightly higher than 10 to 1. As the fleet grows, the ratio drops a bit.

Are you saying every regional out there only has 3 pilots total per airplane?

2) I see your "incorrect", and raise you one.

Again, perhaps we're confusing the terms here. NWA announced that they MIGHT, MAYBE, take 16 planes from PCL when PCL went into contract talks. Subsequently, AFTER THEY BOUGHT XJ, NWA said, "yup, we are now officially announcing that we will give 16 200's to Mesaba".

NWA threatened PCL a while ago, however, they did not add the 200's to our fleet until AFTER they bought us, so your argument over the 200's does not make any sense.

Having said that, we are having "issues" in the 200 training schedule, so who knows what the time table on those will be. No airplane delivery is guaranteed until well after its over with.

3) Yup, time will tell.

4) Agreed. In order to sell us, they will need to sell us along with fairly solid contracts to do the flying. It is unlikely that they will be able to abuse BK again to subsequently toss out that contract, at least to the extent they did this time.

 

Don't get me wrong, if you have 3000+ hours the upgrade will be much much faster at PCL. If you're a lower time guy, you very well might upgrade quicker at XJ, as our upgrade mins are lower (for better or for worse). Until you upgrade, our FO pay is higher and our work rules, and therefore our QOL, is better. However, a PCL 200 Capt will earn more than an XJ Saab Capt.

I'm not bashing PCL, either. I want you guys to get an industry leading contract. I'll also happily picket/pamphlet, etc in MSP if I'm not working, to give whatever support I can to the cause. I just don't agree with some of the arguments I've seen here against XJ.