AIRLINES

I believe the deal being offered to DAL by NWA is to do the merger without settling the pilot listings. The previous deal offered NWA pilots $50 to $100 Thousand equity in the new company and 25 to 30% raises. The companies can agree to merge without offering these perks to the pilots and then let the pilots negotiate to get some or all of these perks as a part of settling the seniority questions.

Also keep in mind that world wide oil demand has been growing by less than 3.5 million barrels per day but that there are 7 million barrels of new production set to come on line in 2008 and another 7 million set to come on line in 2009. This is all before the development of the monster discoveries in Kazakhstan and Brazil. One extra barrel will bring the fuel price down by $30 per barrel or so. As can be seen in the recent price drop in gold from over $1000 to the $930 range, the turn in commodity prices appears to be happening. The spike in oil prices of the past couple of days was a result of the government of Iraq being strong enough to go after the "Iraqi Mafia" of Basra. This is kind of like when the US Government finally went after Capone, the end of the story was written as soon as Elliot Ness was hired. The Iranians can no longer depend on their "agents" in Basra to disrupt the anti-terrorism progress.