I agree with your points.... It really gives me no pleasure to point out how horrible this situation is, but the point I am trying to make is that your mgmt. is really screwing the place up.
DAL went thru the whole INTL mess in the early 90s. They almost went BK back then. Seems like the current guys would have figured out that INTL is a huge double-edged sword. Very expensive routes which must be supported-full or empty.
It was foolish of them to think that only the domestic market would tank. The world's economies are all so inter-dependent these days, there was no logical reason to expect that domestic would tank while INTL travel into/out of the U.S. would boom. This strategy was plain foolish.
Now, if they succeed in putting AirTran out of business (which has been their stated goal,) they will have smacked a hornet's nest by getting SWA (a much, much stronger competitor-with a huge route structure, compared to AirTran's) right into their home hub.
I hate to see anyone furlough-it is bad for the whole industry, but DAL investors and stakeholders need to wake up and recognize that they have a very poor mgmt. team making some really stupid moves.
-Steenland and Anderson will destroy the company if they are left in charge for a couple more years-investors and employees should be doing everything they possibly can to get rid of these guys!