Delta pilots are urging the US DoT to review the Delta-Aeroméxico transborder joint venture (JV), saying the increased US job and career opportunities promised by the alliance have failed to materialize. When DOT granted antitrust immunity to the carriers in 2016, it set the grant to expire every five years pending a comprehensive review of the JV’s merits. Delta and Aeroméxico have petitioned DOT to extend its ATI grant indefinitely, suggesting a confidential review process similar to the one granted to American Airlines and Qantas would suffice should DOT insist on holding period reviews. Pilots at Delta have become increasingly skeptical of the professional and career benefits offered by the carrier’s joint venture partnerships. On Aug. 16, the Delta Master Executive Council (MEC) of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) submitted a filing urging DOT to impose stricter conditions on Delta’s transatlantic JV with Virgin Atlantic and Air France-KLM, expressing “serious concerns” about how Delta divided service growth among crews under its immunized partnership with Virgin. Like the Delta-Virgin partnership, the MEC believes the Aeroméxico JV is ripe for abuse, arguing in an Aug. 29 DOT filing that the arrangement between two carriers with “significantly disparate labor standards” is potentially vulnerable to labor arbitrage. Story has more.<br/>