Originally Posted by
yellowtriumph
Would it not have been reasonable for IA to have kept the pilots on the payroll in anticipation of eventually taking delivery of the Max, and then negotiating these extra payroll costs from Boeing as part of the inevitable overall compensation package that IA, and indeed many other airlines, will be demanding?
There are real questions regarding how much compensation any airline will receive for the grounding event, but as a general point of law the harmed party has a duty to mitigate their losses and not run up the tab. Boeing could rightfully claim that IA had no duty to keep pilots on the payroll that they could no longer use absent some other contractual obligation to do so. It would have been a nice gesture on IA’s part, but it is also possible that they are looking at abandoning any plans to employ the 737 in their fleet.