Ty,
A couple of points:
1. I have mentioned this before, but few seem to want to listen. I have personally heard Fred Reid himself say that they had no desire to trade furloughs for concessions. His quote was, "If we only need X pilots, we will only keep X pilots, regardless of the cost." Continued allegations about our senior pilots from many on this board seem to ignore that fact.
2. I don't expect you to agree with this, but sometimes NOT giving away money helps your pilot group more than giving.
3. You have often mentioned that you made the choice to come to aai because of a number of factors. I commend you on your choice, and wish you continued good luck there. However, in the interest of full disclosure, did you make that choice because you had no others besides staying where you were? Please do not take offense, because none is intended, but I am interested in your decision making process. Did you apply to any major? Did they hire you? Did you turn down any job offer from a major in favor of aai? My point is, a choice when no alternatives were present except staying put is not really a choice worthy of much praise. All the same, I hope that it works out for you. And, just as you are happy where you are, I would like to say that furlough or not, I wouldn't trade numbers with any other pilot right now. I am quite confident that Delta will be around long after most others die. I, like you, was very careful to which airline I hitched my wagon. I am very confident that Delta will prosper, which is one of the reasons that I left two other airlines to join them.
4. You still have not answered my earlier post. You might not want to go back to it, so I will repeat my questions.
Please post all the routes where we increased seats on routes you fly. You have mentioned one. One does not a trend make. Also, if we did as you suggest, our airplanes would be empty and you would be adding service on every route. Airline tickets are very inelastic, and even a dollar increase in fares over a competitor will usually result in a lost sale. Res computers print lowest price first on an identical route, and the first shown is more often than not the one purchased. Your suggestion to us ignores that reality. There are many other factors that you seem content to ignore in your oft-repeated theory.
A. Every airline is suffering from fares being too low. Your thery seems to indicate that only fares on routes in direct competition to aai should suffer.
B. There is too much capacity in the industry, causing airlines to lose their pricing ability. Most airlines recognize this and are cutting capacity. Some (yours included) are adding capacity, further harming the industry's price control ability. Do I blame them? Not really, if it makes sense for them. But it is pretty ironic to hear one of their pilots blame US for low fares!
C. The ONLY airlines who are able to make a profit at current pricing levels are ones who pay their people below industy standard rates. I have mentioned this before, and people always argue that it doesn't have an effect on the profession. If that is the case, why is EVERY airline who does pay industry standard wages asking for concessions (major concessions)? LCC cost advantage lies primarily in wages and benefits. I think all of us, regardless of airline, should be pretty concerned about the future of this career. In most LCC examples, if the majors were to lower their wages and benefits to your level, your airline would die. Without low costs, you could not compete with our routes, schedules, size, international presence, ff program, alliances, cash reserves, marketing budget, etc. Your only choice would be to lower wages. Then we would be exactly where we are now, only making less money. LCC disciples can ignore it if they want, but their wage packages ARE having a devastating effect on this profession. MUCH worse than a few extra seats on a single route out of florida.
I await your response. I enjoy our discussions, but I think that you are WAAYY out in left field with this one. The very vast majority of industry analysts do too. In fact, I have never heard one propose what you are proposing.
As always, I could be wrong. In this instance, I don't think that I am. I look forward to a list of city pairs to back up your allegations.