Compass to Seperate from DAL MEC

[hockeypilot44]

Are you under the impression that ALPA created the merged USAir seniority list? How can you place blame on ALPA for what a neutral arbitrator decided?

I know exactly what happened in the USAir situation. Mid-Atlantic was not an airline. It was a separate contract that covered USAir pilots operating USAir aircraft on the USAir operating certificate. The furloughed USAirways' pilots were allowed to bypass recall to Mid-Atlantic (USAir). This created a situation where junior USAir pilots were active USAir pilots and some senior USAir pilots were still voluntarily furloughed (they didn't want to fly for USAir under a different contract than every other fleet). The so-called neutral arbitrator decided to fix ALPA's mistake by simplifying things and just calling all the MidAtlantic pilots furloughed (even though they were active USAir pilots). So yes, I blame ALPA. The arbitrator was placed in a no win situation so he decided to go with the America West pilots due to the USAir pilots not budging from straight DOH. There will always be winners and losers in mergers. IMHO, anytime two carriers with similar pay scales and aircraft merge (USAir/America West, Delta/Northwest), DOH should be the standard. It might not be fair, but at least there would be a standard.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

There will always be winners and losers in mergers. IMHO, anytime two carriers with similar pay scales and aircraft merge (USAir/America West, Delta/Northwest), DOH should be the standard. It might not be fair, but at least there would be a standard.

Absolutely not.

Merge 2 less than successful airlines like usair/america west, you're going to have a turd of a final product in an SLI no matter what you do.

In no way is DOH anywhere close to an appropriate standard for an SLI.

 

[DoinTime]

I know exactly what happened in the USAir situation. Mid-Atlantic was not an airline. It was a separate contract that covered USAir pilots operating USAir aircraft on the USAir operating certificate. The furloughed USAirways' pilots were allowed to bypass recall to Mid-Atlantic (USAir). This created a situation where junior USAir pilots were active USAir pilots and some senior USAir pilots were still voluntarily furloughed (they didn't want to fly for USAir under a different contract than every other fleet). The so-called neutral arbitrator decided to fix ALPA's mistake by simplifying things and just calling all the MidAtlantic pilots furloughed (even though they were active USAir pilots). So yes, I blame ALPA. The arbitrator was placed in a no win situation so he decided to go with the America West pilots due to the USAir pilots not budging from straight DOH. There will always be winners and losers in mergers. IMHO, anytime two carriers with similar pay scales and aircraft merge (USAir/America West, Delta/Northwest), DOH should be the standard. It might not be fair, but at least there would be a standard.

You point to arbitrator Nicolau's alledgidly unreasonable award and then blame alpa for it like it was their decision. There isn't a standard on merging seniority. There never has been and there will likely never be one. If youre upset about the lack of a standard that you knew didn't exist then I think you are the unreasonable one. You could certainly place some blame on the respective MECs for how ugly this got but ALPA national had nothing to do with that.

 

[JohnDoe]

If LM gives up anymore scope and/or if/when that happens if he is not recalled expect to see a successful de-cert drive at DAL

There is a brilliant strategy. Wait until he does even more damage.

There hasn't been enough?

I can hear it now: "oh, but next time something happens, we'll do something about it. And this time we super-duper really do mean it."

 

[hockeypilot44]

Absolutely not.

Merge 2 less than successful airlines like usair/america west, you're going to have a turd of a final product in an SLI no matter what you do.

In no way is DOH anywhere close to an appropriate standard for an SLI.

You work for Delta right? I would not exactly call NWA and Delta successful. They both filed for bankruptcy just like US Airways did. Delta is doing alright now, but in ten years, our company could be filing for bankruptcy again through no fault of our own. The seniority system is based on DOH within an airline. This should not change in mergers. By not going with straight DOH, every single airline merger will go to arbitration. The majority of these will end badly.

 

[Monster Buck]

Any America West pilots want to comment on that?

 

[Cobraair75drvr]

Hockey,

You are a 2007-08 hire at NWA if I am not mistaken so with doh you had very little to lose. As much as I wanted doh not all of our list would have been fair to do it that way. Had we broken the lists down into smaller subsections maybe some parts could have been doh and others relative seniority and some a blend. It would have taken some creative thinking and the most important time. We did not have the luxury of time. The corporate transaction needed to be done while the Rs were in power. Both sides must have felt this way because both dalpa/nwalpa agreed to the method used. Some are happy, some not so happy and some downright livid. I can assure you that there is not a single pilot group in the country that would have wanted doh or for that matter anything other than relative seniority with usair. I am about 55% at DAL 2% better than stand alone. At US using doh I would be 75%+. Big difference. Now take our 88-89 hires. About 36-40% now, doh with US 60%ish. It is easy to say doh when you have lots of longevity(notice I did not say seniority) and the other side has the opposite. All in all I think this merger (despite the latest mishaps and some of our bitching about change) has gone about as well as can be expected. As far as 10 years who knows. Knowing what you know today where would you rather be? Us, Ual, AA etc. It doesn't really matter anyway because the world ends in 2012

You work for Delta right? I would not exactly call NWA and Delta successful. They both filed for bankruptcy just like US Airways did. Delta is doing alright now, but in ten years, our company could be filing for bankruptcy again through no fault of our own. The seniority system is based on DOH within an airline. This should not change in mergers. By not going with straight DOH, every single airline merger will go to arbitration. The majority of these will end badly.

 

[hockeypilot44]

Hockey,

You are a 2007-08 hire at NWA if I am not mistaken so with doh you had very little to lose. As much as I wanted doh not all of our list would have been fair to do it that way. Had we broken the lists down into smaller subsections maybe some parts could have been doh and others relative seniority and some a blend. It would have taken some creative thinking and the most important time. We did not have the luxury of time. The corporate transaction needed to be done while the Rs were in power. Both sides must have felt this way because both dalpa/nwalpa agreed to the method used. Some are happy, some not so happy and some downright livid. I can assure you that there is not a single pilot group in the country that would have wanted doh or for that matter anything other than relative seniority with usair. I am about 55% at DAL 2% better than stand alone. At US using doh I would be 75%+. Big difference. Now take our 88-89 hires. About 36-40% now, doh with US 60%ish. It is easy to say doh when you have lots of longevity(notice I did not say seniority) and the other side has the opposite. All in all I think this merger (despite the latest mishaps and some of our bitching about change) has gone about as well as can be expected. As far as 10 years who knows. Knowing what you know today where would you rather be? Us, Ual, AA etc. It doesn't really matter anyway because the world ends in 2012

DOH would have made me about 50 numbers more senior in our merger. The airline is not my life so I don't care that much. Either way, I'm still junior for a really long time. I still stand by my comment that DOH should have been the norm from day 1 for all mergers of similar airlines. There should have been a national seniority list started years ago in the early eighties.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

DOH would have made me about 50 numbers more senior in our merger. The airline is not my life so I don't care that much. Either way, I'm still junior for a really long time. I still stand by my comment that DOH should have been the norm from day 1 for all mergers of similar airlines. There should have been a national seniority list started years ago in the early eighties.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. That didn't happen in the early eighties, and it's certainly not going to happen now.... DOH and actual seniority are far from being the same thing and is a terrible standard for mergers.

If we had gone DOH, i would have been at least 250 numbers behind where I am now since DAL started hiring so much earlier..but that's long since been gone over and is water under the bridge. The SLI is what it is, and we're not all at each others throats (yet ), which is a far cry from any SLI that i can think of in the past 20 years..