I have no 'dog in this fight' but it has always amazed me how pilots completely miss the financial side of the equation. Pinnacle was owned by NW at one time too and then spun off in an IPO. At the time of the IPO PCL was 30% of NW domestic capacity. That IPO eventually paid over 600 million to NW. Pinnacle's pilots would have had to work for free for a long time to match that. Part of that 600 million was used to fund NW pension plans and that bought the NW pilots off. It is a classic Dick Anderson exercise.
He is starting to turn his attention to the 'regional' side of the operation at the new Delta and the picture of the future is starting to come clear. With 'Regional Handling Services' taking over ground handling for the majority of the DCI network the DCI carriers will become essentially ACMI contractors. Ground handling has been the highest profit margin part of the regional business. Maybe DAL will keep it, maybe they will spin it off like they did Global. There will be a big payday if they do.
What will Anderson do with all the ACMI 'regional' carriers he owns? He has bought and sold Mesaba before. NW bought it once again at a fire sale when the opportunity unexpectedly presented itself. When Compass was formed NW made it clear it would eventually be sold in an IPO. His problem is CMR. He has to find a way to unload a property no one wants. It could be merged into one of the other ACMI carriers. More likely it will be parted out with the 70+ seat AC, and possibly some 50 seat AC, going to Mesaba. This will significantly increase the value of an IPO. The rump of CMR will then be slowly whittled away. When the RAH contract with DAL expires those AC will be replaced with new 175's placed at Compass.
How ever it works out, there will eventually be at least two IPO's. Compass, with 72 ERJ's and a long term service agreement is valued by Wall Street at around 750 million. Mesaba's IPO will be in that ball park too. That's 1.5 billion pilots will need to pony up if they want to put these jobs on the DAL seniority list.
If they aren't willing to pay that, and I doubt they are, they need to start thinking of new structures and agreements that will address each pilot group's needs. The DAL pilots will need to create a real relationship with the 'regional' MEC's and the CMR and Mesaba pilots will need to learn to get a long.
I'm glad I don't 'have a dog in that fight'.