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Did FAPA really try to reach an agreement??

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airlinepilot

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 19, 2002
Posts
481
This came off the SWAPA Pres. Blog. Interesting reading....maybe FAPA already had a handshake with RUH.

In order to satisfy Frontier management/counsel it became necessary to reach an Agreement in Principle (AIP) on a Seniority List Integration (SLI) before the auction was to begin on Thursday. With that news SWAPA began an earnest effort to get a deal done. Our M&A team was in Washington and we hurriedly got them back to DAL for bargaining Wednesday afternoon. The FAPA M&A team was set to fly to DAL as well arriving about the same time. We scheduled bargaining to begin at 1700 CDT.

After our M&A team was in the air headed to DAL FAPA informed SWAPA that their complete team would be unable to get to DAL due to members spread around the country and thus they would not be traveling to DAL. We immediately began setting up a video/audio forum for bargaining still set to begin at 1700 CDT. SWAPA was ready to go at 1700. Just prior to 1700 we were advised that FAPA would not be ready due to their President being unavailable due to his participation in meetings in NY as a member of the unsecured creditors committee. Rather than begin negotiations with the FAPA M&A team, FAPA chose to delay the beginning of bargaining until 1930 CDT until their President was available. We had a deadline of midnight EDT to reach an agreement. So we were down to 3 ½ hours of bargaining time to reach a deal. These type negotiations typically take weeks if not months to conclude. The two M&A teams exchanged several proposals and approaching midnight EDT we concluded our meeting without agreement and agreed to talk on Thursday morning to continue bargaining during the auction process. SWAPA reached out several times on Thursday to FAPA but we never heard back from their team to continue bargaining.

At the conclusion of bargaining we were in agreement on several issues but remained far apart on a combined seniority list. FAPA's position opening was for relative seniority with yet to be determined variable. In pure relative seniority integration you would see 1 Frontier pilot placed between every 10 Southwest pilots all the way down to the bottom of the new combined list. SWAPA's position Wednesday night when we broke was placing the Frontier pilots on the bottom of our list with several positives. The Frontier pilots would be trip pay protected at their CBA book rates plus any percentage increases negotiated in the SWAPA section 6 until the SWAPA rates were higher. This would have resulted in over a 40% increase in pay for most Frontier F/O's. Some would have been even higher. Additionally, we were willing to accept all Frontier pilots on the combined list including all furloughed pilots plus we would allocate 75% of the seats in the new SWA DEN domicile for 3 years following the fence agreement termination. Our proposal satisfied 3 out of 4 of the FAPA identified needs to reach an agreement. Their needs were job protection, pay protection, domicile protection and seat protection. In summary, the FAPA proposal would be a windfall for the FAPA pilots at the expense of the SWAPA pilots. Clearly, we were not willing to go anywhere near that position. Unfortunately we were never able to resume bargaining towards an agreement before the auction concluded. I'm have my doubts whether FAPA had any intention of ever reaching an agreement, especially when we had taken binding arbitration out of the mix with the contingency language.
 
Appears so at first glance

especially when we had taken binding arbitration out of the mix with the contingency language.

Patiently waiting for the FAPA response
 
Patiently waiting for the FAPA response

You might have to wait a while. FAPA will have to spin this thing halfway to the moon to make their response sound good....
 
From our M&A team

[FONT=&quot]Fellow SWAPA pilots,

We are very disappointed the FAPA pilots decided to turn down our SLI offer, and equally as disappointed in the Company's loss in the auction process. It appears that in addition to the labor clause, Republic significantly increased their monetary offer, causing Frontier to go with Republic. Our attorneys in Washington D.C. describe a bankruptcy auction like a "Turkish Rug Bizarre" and there were many mitigating factors which influenced the final decision. Certainly Republic's notable increase in their monetary offer had significant weight on the final decision.

To outline our last offer to the FAPA pilots, we had offered the following:
1. Adding FAPA pilots to the bottom of our Master Seniority List
2. Snap up to the greater of pre-concessionary FAPA pay rates (10% increase) or SWAPA F/O pay rates
3. Indexing pay raises to our Section 6 increases through the fence period
4. Denver Domicile protections for 3 years after the fence agreement

Their counter offer was essentially numbers 2 through 4 plus relative seniority (top to bottom of our list) less a factor of 'X' which they never defined - plus the following:
1. 100% Denver Domicile protection forever
2. $3000/month furlough pay for all of their furloughees forever
3. Health benefits for all furloughees forever (SWAPA values a family of four cobra rate at $1,000/month)

They made no concessions from their offer.

Considering the looming Company-induced deadline of midnight and the vast differences in offers, very little movement was made on either side. Without more time, our differences were just too vast. Our assessment of their offer was essentially "You want all your seniority at our pay rates and benefits." This wouldn't be a win for our pilot group. As such, we left our last offer on the table. At the 11th hour, the Company told us that they would go ahead with the auction and leave the labor contingency in place.
They weren't confident of their success at the auction considering the "negative value" the labor contingency was causing at the legal level, but SWA was committed to our pilots' best interests.

SWAPA did not hear from FAPA at all on Thursday except that they acknowledged some of our communication we forwarded to them. SWAPA made multiple attempts to contact FAPA on Thursday, but FAPA did not return messages or make any further attempt to bargain. Thursday night, the bid was awarded to Republic. [/FONT]
 
It appears SWAPA got punked.

This deal was probably done a month ago...just had to go through the motions.

In the end no one probably had a choice because agreements had been made way before SW entered the scene.

If Southwest wouldn't have tried to be sneaky and do this all at the last minute the results might have been different.
 
Sounds like FAPA made demands they knew were impossible to meet. Imagine giving furloughed pilots $3000 each month along with cobra ($1000), forever. No company could afford that. "They made no concessions for their offer". They clearly had no intention of even trying to come to terms. Too bad for the Juniors guys and gals.
 
[FONT=&quot]Fellow SWAPA pilots,

Their counter offer was essentially numbers 2 through 4 plus relative seniority (top to bottom of our list) less a factor of 'X' which they never defined - plus the following:
1. 100% Denver Domicile protection forever
2. $3000/month furlough pay for all of their furloughees forever
3. Health benefits for all furloughees forever (SWAPA values a family of four cobra rate at $1,000/month)

They made no concessions from their offer.

[/FONT]

FAPA didn't want to do this deal. That is clear.
 
Sounds like FAPA made demands they knew were impossible to meet. Imagine giving furloughed pilots $3000 each month along with cobra ($1000), forever. No company could afford that. "They made no concessions for their offer". They clearly had no intention of even trying to come to terms. Too bad for the Juniors guys and gals.

They might not of had a choice. One of the F9er's on another thread was saying they already had a TA with Republic.

They might have already signed their deal with the devil a long time ago.

No wonder Bedford has been playing it so cool.

It's will be interesting to see what they got!

(insert smart as.s, negative, hateful comments from jaded SW pilots here)
 
Has anybody heard what their deal is with Republic? I have no problem with the SWA rejection if neither side was happy. They may have gotten a better deal with Republic, I hope so for their sake. I have several friends that fly for Frontier, and wish the best for them. It will truly be a shame if they end up with less than what we were offering.
 
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