Andy,
Please stop with the facts.
Vixin, I'm not a fan of either airline. And I definitely don't like the airline that's furloughed me 7 of my 11 years there (and counting).
But if someone's spouting incorrect information and I have proof that it's incorrect, I'll post it. Be it someone who has a Southwest bias or an AirTran bias.
My personal opinion is that AirTran's pilots were offered a fair deal. I don't think that they'll get a better deal out of arbitration but you never know how those things go.
I think part of the problem is that AirTran's pilots have been used to playing poker with management that does a lot of bluffing. From what I've seen over the years, Southwest management doesn't bluff. They don't hold back any bargaining chips; they play straight up. That's not seen very often in business anymore. So when I read Gary Kelly's statements after SL9 was not put to a membership vote, it sounded like the whole integration was in jeopardy. AirTran's pilots don't read it that way. They may be right; GK may let this go to arbitration and they're integrated into a single list. I simply think that the odds of that happening have diminished considerably and now it's a question of what the cost will be to walk away from this without an integration.
If I were GK, I'd be shopping the 88 717s (and the pilots that go with those airframes) to any and all carriers so that I could apply the fragmentation provisions of section 45. Note that selling off those 88 aircraft would comprise more than 50% of AirTran. For the McCaskill-Bond amendment to apply, more than 50% of the carrier's assets have to be transferred in order to be a 'covered transaction'. Spinning off the 717s and crews would solve the entire integration issue since it would completely eliminate McCaskill-Bond from the equation.
... and for those on here that think that such an idea hasn't been presented to Southwest management, I think you're mistaken. I've gone through some parallel processes outside of aviation and the halfway decent lawyers would always have a large list of possible options. When I worked issues, our rule was that we had to be able to present a minimum of three different options but the more the better.
Good luck to everyone who has a stake in this; I hope that it works out reasonably well for everyone but this is pretty much a zero sum game.
