AWA/USAir Merger Questions

[Mercy98]

I had nearly 14 years of continuous employment at airways before they furloughed me once. I did nearly two years of time over at MidAtlantic before that was sold off, and I left before being furloughed from them. I'm still flying now and will be remiss if I didn't consider going back to airways in the New Year. They have already tried to recall me.

Shouldn't my time spent in my career there be worth something? Why would I be placed on the "list" junior to someone else who has continuous employment at AWA but very junior to me?

I'm not looking to jump over anyone in seniority. I think that some fencing in on both sides would help ease the transition to a unified list. The average age of an airways pilot is nearing 55. That in and of itself will produce a need for over 1500 pilots.

If (when) I go back in 2007, and am based "east" then I will naturally fall into my original seniority which will be on reserve in either phl or lga. There will be guys junior to me there, but not too many. Where should I fall if based "west"? In the same approximate position but with my longevity intact. I don't want to go west though. At least not yet.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

I know nothing about the Polar/Atlas merger. Was either one of these airlines hiring 300 pilots a year while the other one was "supposedly" weeks away from liquidation? Not trying to stir the pot, just curious.

Well from a purely industry point of view every airline out there has been "weeks away from liquidation" for five years now!!

Polar Atlas had many issues happening, transfer of flying from Polar to Atlas etc etc.

However Yes, at the time Atlas purchased Polar, Polar was in BK and "supposedly" weeks away from liquidation. Atlas is the buyer, but the list went in Polars favor. Atlas is ACMI, Polar is scheduled. Atlas has contracts and Polar has route authorities.

Now how this "precident" may or may not affect the USAir/AWA stuff I have no clue. I just answered the original question about if it had ever happened before.

 

[abefly]

I had nearly 14 years of continuous employment at airways before they furloughed me once. I did nearly two years of time over at MidAtlantic before that was sold off, and I left before being furloughed from them. I'm still flying now and will be remiss if I didn't consider going back to airways in the New Year. They have already tried to recall me.

Shouldn't my time spent in my career there be worth something? Why would I be placed on the "list" junior to someone else who has continuous employment at AWA but very junior to me?

I'm not looking to jump over anyone in seniority. I think that some fencing in on both sides would help ease the transition to a unified list. The average age of an airways pilot is nearing 55. That in and of itself will produce a need for over 1500 pilots.

If (when) I go back in 2007, and am based "east" then I will naturally fall into my original seniority which will be on reserve in either phl or lga. There will be guys junior to me there, but not too many. Where should I fall if based "west"? In the same approximate position but with my longevity intact. I don't want to go west though. At least not yet.

My opinion, take it as you will, is because of career expectations. The time to upgrade at AWA was 7 years. AWA was actively hiring pilots and growing while U was shrinking. What was your career expectation prior to the merger? Maybe getting recalled or the company liquidating?

 

[TWA Dude]

Shouldn't my time spent in my career there be worth something?

Of course it should.

a. Preserve jobs.
b. Avoid windfalls to either group at the expense of the other.
c. Maintain or improve pre-merger pay and standard of living.
d. Maintain or improve pre-merger pilot status.
e. Minimize detrimental changes to career expectations.

The problem is that points e) and b) could work against each other, ie, why should an AWA pilot suffer stagnation while recalled furloughees leapfrog ahead? I'm not going to make any arguments about seniority integration since it's so subjective, I only wish to point out that just because through no fault of your own the USAirways pilots have suffered doesn't mean that you can be made whole at the AWA pilots' expense.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

I think that the furloughees will be slotted in some fashion personally. The reason being is # 2 on TWA's list.

Given how senior USAir is and the massive amount of retirements coming up in the next 5 to 10 years (something like 65% or better of the total list including furloughees) Any staple of the furloughees guarantees that every Captain seat in the airline will be an AWA guy inside 10 years. I do not see how an arbitrator is going to ignore the fact that such an integration will result in a massive windfall for the AWA group.

Just the way I see it looking at the facts of the lists and merger policy.

 

[michael707767]

Shouldn't my time spent in my career there be worth something? Why would I be placed on the "list" junior to someone else who has continuous employment at AWA but very junior to me?

yes, it should. But you assume that your career is somehow worth more than the career of a AWA pilot who you say is "junior" to you. First of all, junior is a relative term. The "junior" pilot on any companies seniority list is the junior pilot, whether he had two months or 15 years. Second, why do you assume your career is worth more than a pilot at AWA with continuous employement? Could be that "junior" AWA pilot was a former USAir pilot who saw the writing on the wall and bailed out for an airline where he would upgrade quicker. Should he be punished because he chose to move on while you chose to sit around waiting for recall at USAir?

I think the USAir pilots should be given consideration for the fact that they will experiance a lot of retirements in the future and also for the fact that they have widebody international flying while AWA does not. But sorry, I don't think your time, continous or not, on the USAir list amounts to anything. A junior FO is a junior FO, whether you were hired in 1990 or 2000. Date of hire means nothing unless you stay at one company. What has happend since you DOH is what matters in a merger.

 

[Mercy98]

Keep in mind that differences here when we speak of seniority at airways.

I had 14 years before being furloughed; someone who was hired literally months after I was hired only has somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-6 years active time. There was nearly a 10 year period that NO BODY was hired, and those hired after that period had maybe one year on the property before being let go.

Out of the over 1700 pilots registered on furlough, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 will return. The first 300-400 will bring with them their lengthy seniority, while the rest will bring back with them less than 6 years. That is IF they even return. I know many already who will not for various reasons (age, retired, new career, etc).

Many at AWA have seniority over quite a few of airways furloughed pilots. I'm not sure if that's not very well known. It's the most senior furloughed that you seem to be worried about, and that's not a big number of pilots when you look at the big picture.

 

[JetMonkey]

Let's talk a little about "expectations" on BOTH sides for a moment. With all due respect I don't believe that any USAir furloughee could say that they thought for a minute they were going to be coming back to mainline.
The way things were there before the merger? No way. If you do say that you did then I have to say I question your honesty. You can flame me for saying that if you like, but that's what I truly believe. I also like to say that I agree with Michael about "junior" being relative, my quality of life being close to the bottom here in the west is the same as the 17 year guy in the east.

Now, here was MY expectation. We were growing, hiring, and making a profit (small but nevertheless a profit). By now since I've been on property had everything remained the same, I should've been a line holder with over 500 pilots under me, BUT in the last 19 months since the merger was announced, literally everything in the west has come to a roaring stop, I still am on reserve and only have just over 100 under me. Like I said, I don't mean to flame here, we all know how touchy touchy this whole thing has become, I just don't care to listen to people who forget that EVERYONE has expectations not just them, regarless of who's are greater.

 

[Itsallsogood]

"Given how senior USAir is and the massive amount of retirements coming up in the next 5 to 10 years (something like 65% or better of the total list including furloughees) Any staple of the furloughees guarantees that every Captain seat in the airline will be an AWA guy inside 10 years. I do not see how an arbitrator is going to ignore the fact that such an integration will result in a massive windfall for the AWA group."

Seeing how upgrades were 7 years at AWA, anything above that (inside 10 years) is not preserving the career expectations at AWA. No "massive" windfall. NONE. What were the career expectations at AAA to upgrade? furloughees too? How many furloughed pilots at AAA were sitting around the phone just waiting for that phone call for that recall to AAA prior to this merger? NONE. Since this aquisition, furlougees are now salivating, not only at a recall, but to jump ahead of AWA pilots. Windfall? Like it or not...AAA had already started liquidation procedures. (The AAA MEC had 4 independent investment bankers all say that AAA would be liquidated in weeks, if not days.) AWA pilots have a job, AAA pilots have a job. Windfall... AAA. New combined contract, AWA pilots get a raise, AAA pilots get a bigger raise. Windfall AAA.
Violation of TA agreement? (ie.[PHX-SAN-PHX], [PHX-CUN-PHX] by AAA crews) Windfall AAA.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

"Given how senior USAir is and the massive amount of retirements coming up in the next 5 to 10 years (something like 65% or better of the total list including furloughees) Any staple of the furloughees guarantees that every Captain seat in the airline will be an AWA guy inside 10 years. I do not see how an arbitrator is going to ignore the fact that such an integration will result in a massive windfall for the AWA group."

Seeing how upgrades were 7 years at AWA, anything above that (inside 10 years) is not preserving the career expectations at AWA. No "massive" windfall. NONE. What were the career expectations at AAA to upgrade? furloughees too? How many furloughed pilots at AAA were sitting around the phone just waiting for that phone call for that recall to AAA prior to this merger? NONE. Since this aquisition, furlougees are now salivating, not only at a recall, but to jump ahead of AWA pilots. Windfall? Like it or not...AAA had already started liquidation procedures. (The AAA MEC had 4 independent investment bankers all say that AAA would be liquidated in weeks, if not days.) AWA pilots have a job, AAA pilots have a job. Windfall... AAA. New combined contract, AWA pilots get a raise, AAA pilots get a bigger raise. Windfall AAA.
Violation of TA agreement? (ie.[PHX-SAN-PHX], [PHX-CUN-PHX] by AAA crews) Windfall AAA.

The problem is that you are no longer just AWA anymore. AWA had 7 year upgrades. A quick upgrade at USAir was 12 years.

The combined airline is roughly the size of the original pre 2001 USAirways (Actually still a little smaller) It is just a fact of life that the upgrade at a large non-growth carrier is much longer. Always has been and always will be. And by purchasing USAirways, this is what AWA has become.

Now on the flip side of things, being with a large slow moving seniority list used to also mean a large paycheck as well, sadly this is no longer the case.

All I am looking at in my comments here is how I think that an arbitrator is going to see things. My thoughts are coming from having been in this process twice before with two different carriers. Each side fights and argues with the other, but in the end non of it matters. How the arbitrator sees things is the way it will go. Retirements #'s have traditionally been looked at closely in cases like this. In the case of Atlas /Polar the older carrier (Atlas) took the top 100 spots of the list(700 pilots) because of a date of hire issue. Atlas was one year older than Polar so all hired in that one year prior to Polars formation got the top spots. Obviously this scenario would be disasterous for AWA so we will not be seeing it here. But to say that because you expected to upgrade in 7 years at a carrier that now has a 12 year upgrade, that you still get your 7 year upgrade will not fly far with an arbiter.

Additional factors that will come into play with the arbiter will be the multi billion dollar give backs that the AAA pilots gave in concessions to help save the company, AWA's profitibility status at the time of the buy out as well as USAirs. The route authority that each carrier has as well as equipment operated. Even things like market saturation and population served by each carrier can affect an arbiters decision.

Everybody in the industry ought to know by now that nobody gives a rats rump what we pee-on pilots think!!

For the record I am so far down AAA's list that the most I could lose in a staple job would be about 4 years seniority, not even worth bothering about in todays market. I am just not looking forward to having to hear the same 12 year old Piedmont/Usair "career expectation gripe this time around!!

 

[Crzipilot]

If anyone can get the AAA arbitration update notes, it is interesting reading. AAA side is putting forth their arguements these three days. One item of interested was that in 10 yrs 80% of the active pilots will be retired, and with that much movement AWA would actually have a disparity of movement into furthering their careers, or something like that. And that was with a straight DOH merging. Supposedly it get dissaportionately better for the AWA with a slotting integration. Something like there would be AWA guys on widebody international within 1.5 years or something like that. Just interesting info.

 

[Itsallsogood]

Likewise... we at AWA can't care about what AAA conceeded, nor DOH. End game....it is out of our hands. Whatever the outcome, so be it. It makes for some (entertaining) online jockeying. After all the smoke has settled, first rounds on me. Too bad, however, most pros out East, on duty, still treat us as the bad guys.

 

[Itsallsogood]

If anyone can get the AAA arbitration update notes, it is interesting reading. AAA side is putting forth their arguements these three days. One item of interested was that in 10 yrs 80% of the active pilots will be retired, and with that much movement AWA would actually have a disparity of movement into furthering their careers, or something like that. And that was with a straight DOH merging. Supposedly it get dissaportionately better for the AWA with a slotting integration. Something like there would be AWA guys on widebody international within 1.5 years or something like that. Just interesting info.

That was all testimony from the AAA side. AWA attorney Jeff Freund disclaimed F/O Kevin Barry's "looking forward vs. looking backwards" logic that AAA is trying to use. Freund also questioned Barry's belief that AAA should be doing the AWA Hawai'i flying.
Freund then questioned F/O Dean Colello <sp> about the furlough list, F/O Colello's personal agenda on the list and questioned his being the Furloughed Administrator.
Also in question were attrition exihibits, specifically why supervisory pilots were on two lists. Attrition and monthly bidding. (oooops)
In addition, it was 80% of retirees are from the EAST(including fuloughed and J4J'ers) not 80% of the EAST.

It is all perspective.

 

[Itsallsogood]

"Other than narrow body vs. wide body, the days of getting paid more to fly bigger planes are gone." Doug Parker. (I did hear this.)

My question then is this. Doug, are you going to pay the E190 pilots the same as Airbus pilots? Or do bigger planes get paid more? Mainline E190 rates should be the same.

 

[Crzipilot]

Well all I said was the report was an interesting read. And quite a few are wondering if we can get our hands on the West side report, to get the different perspective of what occurred......sounds like that was part of it.