AirTran MEC: Whine on!

[fam62c]

No, I believe AirTran seniority was more valuable than SWA seniority. Someone at the 60% mark at AirTran was about ready to upgrade. Someone at the 60% mark at SWA still has a long wait because SWA was/is a stagnant airline. I know you think that your CBA matters, but it doesn't. Contracts come and go pretty easily. Seniority doesn't.

Using that yardstick you could take any two airlines flying comparable equipment and say that seniority at the airline with the faster upgrade is more valuable regardless of the compensation or quality of the job.

If there is a start up airline with 15 737's and they are growing quickly and the upgrade time is one year then that FO's seniority is more "valuable" than a SW FO in year ten, or, prior to the SW/AT combination an AT FO in year five?

If SW had never come along and instead AT had merged with this fictional, unionized, young, up-and-coming carrier would you have argued that a year one FO at this airline had more "valuable" seniority than your seniority at AT?

I think that if you had been a 10 year FO at SW instead of a three, four or whatever year FO at AT when this happened you would be making the opposite of the arguments you are making now with just as much idealistic passion.....you would be Wave

 

[madjack]

I meant no disrespect for Hawaiian, just in the age of acquisition/merger, no one wants to be the low hanging pineapple...but I know nothing...

 

[Tripower455]

No, I believe AirTran seniority was more valuable than SWA seniority. Someone at the 60% mark at AirTran was about ready to upgrade. Someone at the 60% mark at SWA still has a long wait because SWA was/is a stagnant airline. I know you think that your CBA matters, but it doesn't. Contracts come and go pretty easily. Seniority doesn't.

Wow.

Using that logic, you shoulda stayed at Gulfstream!

 

[Ty Webb]

I like SWA. I think they are a great airline. Their free and easy jump seat policies have gotten me everywhere I've wanted to go in the continental U.S. for the last 15 years. Their flights run mostly on time and they treat offline nonrevs great. Their policies on unaccompanied minors and ticket changes/refunds made my visitation easy when my daughter was little.

But not everyone wants to work at SWA. Right after I got recalled to Hawaiian after a 5 year furlough and was at the bottom of the seniority list with hardly any longevity (i.e. nothing holding me to back), I turned down an interview with SWA because I was happy being at Hawaiian. Hawaiian was always my first choice of airline and I/we (most Hawaiian pilots) view our seniority number at Hawaiian as more important than a seniority number at SWA, Delta, etc. I would hate for Hawaiian to be bought and if it did happen, I would be fighting as hard or harder than the AirTran guys to protect my seniority.

SWA guys thinking SWA is a better place to work than AirTran doesn't necessarily make it so. Ever since this was first announced, SWA pilots on this site have displayed an arrogance that reflects very badly on them as a pilot group. I have had many discussions with SWA/AirTran pilots about this acquisition on both the SWA jump seat and with them in my jump seat, as well as with the couple of SWA pilots and one AirTran pilot I personally know. Except for one SWA LAS CP claiming after the initial announcement that AirTran pilots were glorified regional pilots who would be lucky to be stapled, I've never seen this arrogance displayed in the real world. (This CP went on to say Hawaiian could expect the same if ever bought by SWA because we were a small insignificant airline. If we had still been on the ground, he would have been invited to leave.) In fact, about 2 weeks ago when I jumped to SAN the FO was a just brought over former AirTran Captain on his 5th SWA flight. The SWA Captain said to me that he should be a Captain at SWA not a FO. The FO shrugged and said that you just had to accept what life hands you.

The AirTran pilots on here need to get over their anger and make the best the situation. The SWA pilots need to drop their arrogance and have a little sympathy for lives/careers going in a different direction than planned.

Wow... Jim, that was a great post, well said, and I don't disagree with any of it. Thanks for a different perspective.

 

[PCL_128]

If SW had never come along and instead AT had merged with this fictional, unionized, young, up-and-coming carrier would you have argued that a year one FO at this airline had more "valuable" seniority than your seniority at AT?

I would have argued for the exact same thing I argued for when the merger with Midwest was being worked out: relative seniority.

 

[madjack]

Rel Sen, talk about overshooting the mark and creating unrealistic expectations...

 

[DUBLINFLYER]

I was in a hotel close to Love Field last night and met a good number of AT guys going thru the transition and they all liked what was going on, one even said his union dues will now drop when they become SWAPA members. There are lots more transition classes happening for the rest of the year(1000+)

 

[dicko]

I was in a hotel close to Love Field last night and met a good number of AT guys going thru the transition and they all liked what was going on, one even said his union dues will now drop when they become SWAPA members. There are lots more transition classes happening for the rest of the year(1000+)

Great report. Keep them coming.

Wow, his union dues are gonna drop ? That's a 1% pay raise right there. What a surprising turn of events ! The part I'm most excited about is your report that there's going to be over 1000 pilots transitioning in the next 6 months. That's 165 per month ....... :erm:

What a maroon. Somebodies been playing with your mind.

 

[maxblast72]

I would have argued for the exact same thing I argued for when the merger with Midwest was being worked out: relative seniority.

PCL128, do you think the Midwest MEC Vice Chair would have been running around telling their pilots that they were guaranteed to get better than DOH from an arbitrator?

 

[fam62c]

PCL128, do you think the Midwest MEC Vice Chair would have been running around telling their pilots that they were guaranteed to get better than DOH from an arbitrator?

In that case (where a merger never took place) PCL's argument is that the Midwest pilots should have gotten less than DOH (by way of relative seniority) because AT was the younger, faster growing airline. His argument was the same with SW/AT because, again, AT was the younger faster growing airline with quicker promotion. In both cases he was working for the younger, faster growing airline so why wouldn't he want that....who wouldn't in the same position?

Relative seniority always favors the faster growing airline at that moment with the quicker upgrade at the moment. I see his argument, I just don't agree with it. He makes the argument that SW's superior compensation, contract and job security was contractual and therefore could change at a moment's notice so it was not a factor in an integration. At the same time he is assuming that AT's faster growth and upgrades were somehow a situation that would NOT change at a moment's notice and were relevant and should be considered to reflect career expectations. He seems to overlook the fact that while SW's pay and benefits remained untouched through 2008 and 2009 (and no pilot was furloughed) AT went from hiring and upgrading to furloughing and downgrading in an instant. If anything growth and fast promotion is a more temporary and fickle thing than contract quality because it can change drastically very abruptly.

I don't blame PCL and he, along with everybody else, is entitled to his own opinion but fair is a relative term and it all depends on where you stand. I think people on both sides oversimplify the issue, every case is different from others and this would have been an interesting arbitration. I have my own opinion on what an arbitrated list would have looked like and whether it would have ever actually been implemented but it doesn't matter now, it's over and the list is the list for now and forever.