That's exactly how it's supposed to work. And that's been my experience. Whenever I get to a facility that doesn't do it "right", I simply ask them to give UHC a call. The number is on the back of the card. So far, after that call, it's always done right.

Popcorn gotten. Seat belt found. Ready to go.

Now where to?

A) Awesome its the most fuel efficient narrow body,

B) I'm going to have to print this off and put it in my flight kit so I can pull
it out when I mention we bought MD-90s and the "oh you naive new hire, let me tell you something about Delta, blah blah blah, they've been saying we'd buy MD-90s for years, blah blah blah, once I started a rumor that we were buying MD-90s then I sat back and waited for the news to come back and it did..."

Forgive my joy on so many levels.

Heyas,

Whatever the outcome, this is a major stake in the heart of AMRs Pacific presence.

They are going to be ****ed.

They can either:

1) Ignore Asia
2) Extract payback on Delta by crippling their feed.
3) Look to "purchase" Asia from someone else
4) 2 and 3.

If I were DAL, I would take every spare airplane in the desert and throw it in SEA/LAX domestically. Mirror ALKs feed into SEA and LAX. When AMR comes knocking, run the price up, then bail knowing you already had alternate feed in place. AMR then pays top dollar for nothing.

A buncha DC-9s are down in the desert.They're all paid for and gas is still relatively cheap. Top'em off, charge the battery, roll'em downhill and let the clutch out and now you GOT your feed to Asia.

Sigh...don't make me do all the thinking around here...

Nu

New,

Dead on, as we've been saying all along. AMR is dead in Asia, and it just leaves us and United. Leaves AMR with a bunch of 777s with no where to fly them except an already over saturated Atlantic. Could see them dump a bunch of seats into South America? (I admit I know nothing about that region).

Boys, as Sink says, ANA/United is still a big shark in the water......but this is huge!

Ferd

PS Ferd <----------not frozen, looks like I may have lucked into something good not bidding the last AE

If the JAL news is true, and it turns out to be a major positive for DAL and DAL pilots, I think RA and company deserve major kudos.

Granted to some of you this is "ancient history", but when DAL bought Pan Am assets in bankruptcy court, Robert Crandall at AMR bid up the price substantially, driving up the price to the point it wasn't such a great deal.

However it would seem (preliminarily) that DAL out negotiated AMR as far as JAL is concerned.

Again this is historical perspective, but Halter's comments on the MD-90's "economy" are somewhat ironic considering DAL was the launch customer for the MD-90. IIRC, we had something like 55 firm orders and 60 options for MD-90's in the early to mid-nineties.

Of course it's a whole lot nicer to buy a low time aircraft for a fraction of it's original purchase price!

Isn't that what dal did to pan.am

Connecting the dots and trying to hit ACL's softballs is harder than people know nu. So nu, you think, I'll wall paper with pictures.

I still think that DAL's money will be used one way or another.

Open-Skies and access to Haneda will make this worthwhile. I hope that the latter is there.

Heyas Ferd,

Agree. I forgot:

5) Extract vengeance where you still have muscle. Namely SoAm. I'd expect to see AMR turn the screws there, and turn them hard. Its the only place that DAL isn't #1, and has the highest yields out of anywhere.

NYC and MIA are two of the best O&D for SoAM, and AMR has a lock on one, and MUCH better facilities and a good presence in the other. Plus UAL has a ton of unused route authority to SoAM (the old PamAm routes...AMR has the old Braniff/Eastern authorities), so by doing a UAL deal, they could get the PAC and lock up SoAM at the same time.

I now see the panic to get NYC into a state of non-shambles.

That may have been the genesis of the Spirit blather last week.

Interesting times. This is the game. Not for the timid.

Nu

Whut?
.....