Of course a USAir or UAL guy is going to expect DOH. Why wouldn't they? The equation would result in a windfall for them. Which is exactly what ALPA Merger Policy strives to avoid.
Just as I'm sure my career expectations as a CAL pilot will get watered down by this merger, so too will any UAL pilot's expectation based purely on DOH.
It's amazing how selfish we pilots can be. I suppose it's human nature. I remember when UA was a few days away from buying Aloha Airlines back in '08. My AQ buddies were adamant that they will get DOH at UAL. They were all hired in the mid-nineties, why wouldn't they expect that? It would benefit them most. They hadn't bothered to get uncomfortable with their career by striving for something outside of Hawaii, and now they wanted to be rewarded for that now that their airline was bleeding to death? I even recall them wishing for UAL to go out of business in the 1990s as they were jealous of UALs progress during those years (yes, I actually heard those words said to me). Funny, yet tragic, how life turns out sometimes.
UAL was my dream airline when I was new to this industry in the early 1990s. But I wasn't really competitive (being in the majority res pile) until around 1997-1999 time frame. But by the time my interview date came around by 2000', I decided to focus on timing my career with a different carrier. The reason? UAL had hired way too many pilots from mid-1990s to 2000 who were at or around my age. By 2000 I knew I'd be looking up their tailpipe for the rest of my career. When they got their stellar contract that same year, many of my buds there laughed at me for not coming over. And why wouldn't they? But I just didn't see the point in signing on with a carrier on the back side of a huge hiring boom. Anybody that knows about seniority knows why I'm talking about. I remember in summer of 2001 I had a Navy pilot on my jumpseat who had just been hired by UAL. He couldn't stop talking about how fantastic his future looked. But I recall thinking that he would be a FO for 15-20 yrs. And he was much older than me so maybe he would see 757 Capt by the end of his career. So 9/11 came along, all of our career hopes were dashed, and here we are nearly 10 yrs later.
When I upgraded early in my career at CAL, I thought I finally had the proof that I made the right decision to hold out for an airline with a hiring boom. A lot of that decision was luck, since I was also trying to get on with AQ, but a lot of it was calculated also. I had other more lucrative career options outside of CAL but the impending hiring boom (based on retirements) made the most sense. It was painful at first, no health ins, b-scale poverty wages. But it paid off. The DOH crowd suggests that these things should take a backseat to their interests. Those of us at CAL think otherwise. We have a lot of growth aircraft coming, many of which should be on property by now but are held up due to issues with Boeing and it's vendors. Like the General said, at the end of the day we'll all end up with some sort of relative snrty number. That is going to pummel my career expectations but not much I can do about it when it is entirely up to the MCs of both airlines and the arbitrator.
One thing is for certain, we're going to both need to learn to get along and stand unified if we want this merger to benefit our profession. There is nothing mgmt at both airlines wants more than to see our two pilot groups duke it out for the next 15-20 yrs.
