Everything about flying has become substantially worse except safety. The only way the industry is able to maintain its safety record is by being heavily regulated and never changing anything.
Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't flexed this more.
Don’t forget that when ATCs actually followed your logic, Reagan responded by firing them all, and even though in more recent years this has been cast as the horrible beginning-of-the-end for American unions, at the time he had broad public support, because people were incensed that one profession could shut down air travel.
All this is to say that I think pilots’ unions do have a good sense of how hard to push and not push. They don’t have infinite leverage.
Pilots are one of the few professions that are covered under the Railway Labor Act, so federal mediators have lots of power to reach an agreement between airlines and pilots