Average inflation adjusted prices do not account for reduced supply - hence the growth of shale oil etc - becasue they are only adjusted for INFLATION and not for supply source availability. There is a reason that countries like the USA are trying to boost domestic sources of oil. The Saudis have learnt from history and want to starve these guys out of the game with their cost base of $10/barrel. That is the single reason proces are at current levels - because the Saudis are choosing to maintain OPEC output for their own selfish, long term reasons and they could change their minds at anytime. Your data also doesn't adjust for increasing future demand for oil with the emergence of China, India and other countries' middle classes. That's why I'd rather go with my future scenario of oil heading back towards $100 than your 'inflation adjusted' figure from the past. It's a nice graph looking BACK, but I don't think it tells us much looking FORWARD. Why don't you start your graph even further back at the year 1800 so the average price oil is 5 bucks? So what? It would just been even more irrelevant.
Anyway I think this is meant to be about the long haul EBA...
Airlines typically operate on proft margins of less than 4% (
http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pag...-12-10-01.aspx) and labour costs are one of the few major differences, since fuel and aircraft costs are much less variable between airlines. To that extent, pilots costs absolutely can be the difference between a route being profitable or unprotiable over the medium to long term - we shouldn't stick our heads in the sand about that. That doesn't mean selling the farm though, I do agree, but I don't think we should be militant in not being willing to structure our terms differently to reflect the possibility of more proftiable ULH operations over the next decade or two and I'm bloody sure most pilots feel the same way. There will be plenty of politics to be played and slogans to be thrown around by a small number of senior pilots with this EBA, but in the end the majority will decide.