The only problem with this is Delta and other mainline carriers have been moving away from buying aircraft for regional affiliates due to the negative effect it has on their balance sheets and debt ratio. The move lately has been to have the regional carriers finance the aircraft. The desire to control the aircraft is diminished by the increase in finance rates on aircraft due to the increased debt burden.

Ok....dumb question.....is that good or bad news? Or just news? Thanks.

Im guessing bad, anyone hear about the FAs getting WARN letters today?

Save money for 3 months then file BK and park the planes, I can see it now...

I look at it as a good thing. It seems to essentially be a 3 month interest free loan. While this may put off the inevitable, it means that the company's negotiations have at least achieved something with one party.

Hopefully Delta's positive earnings reports will give us more leverage in renegotiating our contracts with them.

Hahahahaa.... no.

Bad?? Hardly.

The company is now able to keep cash on hand for what their payments would have been on these aircraft.

The pay cut is a moot point for profitability and it is insulting that SM thinks we can't do the math to realize a 7% cut for 1 year would do nothing.

The real problem is the contracts we have. My brief experience with United has shown me that UAL values cheapness over anything else. The way the A terminal at IAD is run seems like they are willing to spend a dollar to save a penny. The Q is an efficient airplane that should easily make money. It would be in the best interest for UAL to modify the contract to keep Pinnacle around because it would cost a lot more money to start up a Q400 operation at another regional. However, I cannot imagine UAL being able to comprehend the idea of paying more money upfront to save money in the future. All it will take is GoJet to say they will buy Qs and underbid us.

It is a little depressing, but management always wins. They have more information than us and have been planning this for months before they ever said anything to us. They will get their pay cut one way or the other. It is not hard to find a judge who would grant a 25% pay cut and undo the ISL.

memo just went out eliminating the CRW-DCA routes for the Saab making boston all thats left of the usairways express flying for us

And with that, all outstation bases are dead. No more outstation group think anymore.

They won't even offically announce the base is closing because they don't want to run a displacement bid and incur more training costs.