Airtran-Swa. out of seniority?

[ron burgundy]

heard junior folk are transitioning before senior guys. shed some light please.
Also,if true,how so?

 

[DC10]

Here we go...

 

[scoreboardII]

Well, you can't bring over all the captains top to bottom then all the FOs, that's why.

 

[ron burgundy]

Not baiting...just want to know......HOW? I'm sorry..big old can of worms. I know.
It's a frustrating, sensitive, sore subject to touch upon. Again..not trying to start $hit.
I am merely looking for the facts. LET'S KEEP IT DOWN TO 3 PAGES. Your opinion/interpretation doesn't count! Hard to believe for most people on this forum.
You perform your jobs based on.... hard data. Can we try that here?

Thanks

 

[ron burgundy]

Well, you can't bring over all the captains top to bottom then all the FOs, that's why.

That simple...HUH?

 

[scoreboardII]

Yes. Why should it be a complex answer? And it was agreed to.

 

[humveedriver]

Scoreboard is exactly right. It was part of the agreement that SWA could choose the composition (base/seat/aircraft) of the folks who transitioned over. It goes by seniority within those parameters. But there are junior FO's now making more money than senior FO's, and that is really where the contention is. SWA wanted maximum flexibility to draw down the bases and aircraft as they saw fit, in order to maintain two operations, and to shrink one operation and grow another. I know you didn't ask for opinions; but my only problem with the transition is the slow initial pace and the lack of a clear plan. It's been sorta loosely goosey and that hasn't given anyone a ton of confidence.

 

[orangebellyav8r]

Your opinion/interpretation doesn't count!

Then why ask?

 

[CaptWidgeon]

first and foremost, it's about money.
how and why, it was agreed that swa would determine who and when came over. from what a union guy told me, was that mke and mco are not going to be bases anymore (for airtran, not swa), so they wanted to get those pilots trained first, regardless of order. atl is closer to order, but swa isn't going to bring all aai capt's to train as swa f/o's then train aai f/o's to be aai capt's for short term cuz of...$$$.

 

[CaptWidgeon]

but my only problem with the transition is the slow initial pace and the lack of a clear plan. It's been sorta loosely goosey and that hasn't given anyone a ton of confidence.

as a swa pilot with a good aai friend, fairly senior guy on the the 73, i am very disappointed in how swa is doing this. first an foremost, business is business, but there is good and bad business. his 2 complaints right now are; 1.) not knowing what is going on, 2.) that guys much jr to him have a better quality of life, pay, sched, etc than the senior guys. part of this is alpa's fault i believe. the way it was told to me was alpa didn't put up a fight for how the aai pilots were to be chosen. swa put on the table the way they wanted to do it, which was simply we(swa) will make the decisions on how the pilots are brought over, and alpa agreed to it. swa gave no plan and alpa didn't ask. swapa guy told me they were surprised alpa agreed to this, but that was a agreement between alpa and swa.

i don't expect swa to tell the world what our next city will be or our next a/c purchase, although it seems we announced hawaii before we had/have the ability to go there, go figure. back on track, but in my opinion keeping employes in the dark about their so called 'secure' future is disingenuous to me. it is still a great gig, but the tarnish is starting to accumulate at a somewhat alarming rate for me.

 

[Floatplane]

as a swa pilot with a good aai friend, fairly senior guy on the the 73, i am very disappointed in how swa is doing this. first an foremost, business is business, but there is good and bad business. his 2 complaints right now are; 1.) not knowing what is going on, 2.) that guys much jr to him have a better quality of life, pay, sched, etc than the senior guys. part of this is alpa's fault i believe. the way it was told to me was alpa didn't put up a fight for how the aai pilots were to be chosen. swa put on the table the way they wanted to do it, which was simply we(swa) will make the decisions on how the pilots are brought over, and alpa agreed to it. swa gave no plan and alpa didn't ask. swapa guy told me they were surprised alpa agreed to this, but that was a agreement between alpa and swa.

i don't expect swa to tell the world what our next city will be or our next a/c purchase, although it seems we announced hawaii before we had/have the ability to go there, go figure. back on track, but in my opinion keeping employes in the dark about their so called 'secure' future is disingenuous to me. it is still a great gig, but the tarnish is starting to accumulate at a somewhat alarming rate for me.

That sounds more like the MEC's fault and not ALPA's!

 

[CaptWidgeon]

ok, i know very little about the internal roles here. if you say it's an MEC thing i ain't gonna argue that cause i can't.

who was their MEC?

 

[Whine Lover]

It is unfathomable that the Airtran MEC would not ensure that protections were put in place that though allowing SWA to transition out of seniority via base/seat/aircraft more senior pilots would at least be pay protected as junior pilots made the full transition prior to them.

Oh, wait.....This was the same group of geniuses that turned down the first deal ( without a vote of the membership ) that would have transitioned for pay and benefit purposes EVERY single Airtran pilot on April 1, 2012 and allowed EVERY Airtran Captain to retain his seat.

Sorry...I was using my brain and/or some form of logic when I wrote the first paragraph.

Something sadly, The Airtran MEC is/was incapable of doing.

Are any of them still alive?

Or, have the angry pitchfork wielding mobs carried them all off and burned the carcasses to keep the apparently viral Brain-Disease from spreading?


WL

 

[bladeusa]

It's reduculous and embarrassing that the AirTran merger committee and MEC allowed that to happen. Talking about 50k a year for about 3 years. Must not have affected them.
How many on the MC and MEC when this went down have already transitioned vs who is stuck behind on AirTran side of fence?

 

[717capt]

Whine I do know that the merger committee and the MEC were afforded a view at the transition schedule during negotiations, so maybe what they saw then they didn't feel the need for protections. I can tell you that the original transition schedule has been changed a number of times, based on SW needs. So it is what it is. Oh also check airman on the AirTran side can't go over as well. I know of one guy that was a check airman and when he found out he couldn't transition, he turned in his letter and went over.

On your 2nd point, not all AirTran capt's would have retained their seats. What the 1st agreement did do was afford a right of first return to that seat for the AirTran guys. Can't really remember the specifics of it, but I think that they could only return to the 717. Anyway, based on the 71's going away, most capt's would've lost their seats, albeit maybe not the top 200. Yes SW pay on 4/1/2012

As far as the MEC is concerned. 2 of the 7 that voted no were recalled, 2 others of the 7 are already at sw and 2 additional of the 7 will be at sw in Jan. Also 2 members of the merger committee are at sw already. No pitchforks. No unruly mobs. Just recalls. And so what? recalls after the fact? Big whoop! Didn't change anything. Change has to happen before the fact, not after. The MEC did change around the original merger committee shortly after the merger was announced, Still not sure why. I did hear it was because the original committees views on how we should proceed differed from the MEC so a change was made. In my opinion the wrong people were selected for the replacement. Not a senior one among them and all 717 guys. It became evident after the fact that they were all working for themselves anyway. Now if pitchforks and mobs were called for it was for those bastards. Just my opinion. I do know that a lawsuit was filed against alpa by some AirTran guys, but I don't know too much about it. Oh also, one of the original members of the merger committee, the committee that was changed around that is, he was voted on to the MEC, from MKE I think, and he was one of the 7 that said no. He is at SW now.

Look. say whatever you want to say about our MEC, but like it or not, they were the ones chosen to make decisions. Unions, much like our government, are set up as a republic. We choose those to make choices for us. If we don't like that choice, we get rid of them. Anyway just my prespective.