Frontier pulling the plug in DEN?

[ricj41]

The judge tossed out SWA offer because of the clause of it being conditional on pilot agreements. That clause wasn't acceptable to the judge. That's the facts.

To the creditors, Republic's offer was better. And due to the leverage Republic had because of the terrible fee-for-departure agreement we had with them anyone else's offer would have had to have been several hundred million dollars more then theirs. (It's been years, so I don't remember the specifics.)

 

[HowardBorden]

The judge tossed out SWA offer because of the clause of it being conditional on pilot agreements. That clause wasn't acceptable to the judge. That's the facts.

To the creditors, Republic's offer was better. And due to the leverage Republic had because of the terrible fee-for-departure agreement we had with them anyone else's offer would have had to have been several hundred million dollars more then theirs. (It's been years, so I don't remember the specifics.)

Our MEC chairman, Stemmler, was in NY as a member of the creditors committe during the bankruptcy hearing. He was spending his time dealing with the bankruptcy and was not personally involved in the negotiations with SWAPA. So whoever is claiming that he was is lying.
"Stemmler did this" or "Stemmler wouldn't agree to this" is a complete fabrication. We had a merger committee that was negotiating with SWAPA. The MEC chairman never had the power to do what you've claimed he did.

Again, to claim that an MEC chairman has the power to kill a merger is delusional and completely fabricated.
The judge tossed out SWA offer. In the end there was only 1 offer. And to the creditors who decided who won the auction, it was better then SWA initial offer anyways.
People continue to believe that F9 was SWA to be had. That is not correct. Republic always had the better offer. Employees do not determine who buys their company, they never will.

Of course the union president does not have unilateral power to kill a merger, but this was an unusual situation. There was, as you state, a contingency placed on the SWA bid for Frontier. The deal required an AIP on integration between the pilot unions.

With a very limited time frame to hammer out a deal which would then meet the contingency portion of the SWA offer, a simple stall tactic would ultimately derail the Southwest offer.

Your contention that Stemmler was not in any way involved in the negotiations is not consistent with information being provided to SWAPA at the time of the negotiations.


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 1/2 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.

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/2009/08/the-lowdown-from-swapas-kuwitz.html/

 

[Shrek]

Thread drift......

 

[Flopgut]

The need SWA guys feel to rewrite history is pathological. Step 1 inch outside their own very narrow scripted viewpoint and you'll get 4000 words from Bubba and another 1000 from Howard.

F9 had legitimate concerns based on what SWA did to Transtar. That's a completely fair observation to make.

 

[General Lee]

The need SWA guys feel to rewrite history is pathological. Step 1 inch outside their own very narrow scripted viewpoint and you'll get 4000 words from Bubba and another 1000 from Howard.

F9 had legitimate concerns based on what SWA did to Transtar. That's a completely fair observation to make.

But, reading one of Bubba's diatribes does cure something: insomnia. Seriously, three paragraphs in and I'm out....



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[HowardBorden]

The need SWA guys feel to rewrite history is pathological.

Coming from you that is incredibly rich.

 

[N1atEcon]

FAPA did what they thought was in their (senior pilots) interest. It screwed everyone on the ground in the long run. SWA would have shut down res for sure but they needed lots of people to grow DEN so lots of jobs to be had.
What gets the SWA guys is how SWA and SWAPA were portrayed as the bad guys who were going to put all F9 employees in the unemployement line.

 

[SpauldingSmails]

Hey, no one knows what SWA would have done - logically it would have seemed foolish to toss the F9 guys overboard. However, after flying with a dozen ex-ATA dudes at my former carrier - it's understandable where one might get the idea that SWA might fold shop, take gates and discard the carcass. Yes, I understand it was a different situation, but the thought that SWA could leave subsidiary employees hung out to dry isn't quite unprecedented.

 

[DUBLINFLYER]

F9 had a lot of 737 and have a lot of pilots with 737 types that now the Air Bus and it may not have been a difficult transition.
Best of luck to all at F9

 

[SWA Bubba]

But, reading one of Bubba's diatribes does cure something: insomnia. Seriously, three paragraphs in and I'm out....



Bye Bye---General Lee

Wow.

That's some rebuttal, General: "Bubba talks a lot." You sure told me.

Aren't you the guy who chides people for not being able to "handle the truth or debate your way out of a paper bag"? By last count, you've said that little ditty about 932 times. I guess you should know a lot about not being able to debate.

Bubba