Get ASA/XJT Combined Seniority List

[buscap]

Those were different times. Comair is wholly owned as well.



I personally behemently disagree with you that an ASA/XJT merger is better than killing the deal. I am willing deal with the ramifications of killing the deal. CAL or someone else will find the same exact same value in us that the "shrewd" people at Inc have. Like I've said, we didn't ask for someone to come buy us or save us. It was Inc who seems like they desperately want to get in bed with CAL for the "incumbency" and possibility of larger aircraft. Honestly, I think this deal is done whatever happens of all this. Which takes away our having to answer the question on how hard we should push to enforce our contract. Anyways, we have nothing to lose either way. I rather not work for shrewd business people who disregard others in their business dealings while telling us with a smile that we should see them as our "life boat" and at the same time ask us to take 16% concessions to be cost competitive with Skywest pilots. All because he wants to keep separate lists to whipsaw us with. With JO and HK, at least they are up front with screwing you. Its so disingenuous its disgusting.

I completely support your right and reasons for feeling the way you do. It's your contract.

Make sure your MEC knows how you feel.

 

[cybourg10]

I personally behemently disagree with you that an ASA/XJT merger is better than killing the deal. I am willing deal with the ramifications of killing the deal. CAL or someone else will find the same exact same value in us that the "shrewd" people at Inc have. Like I've said, we didn't ask for someone to come buy us or save us. It was Inc who seems like they desperately want to get in bed with CAL for the "incumbency" and possibility of larger aircraft. Honestly, I think this deal is done whatever happens of all this. Which takes away our having to answer the question on how hard we should push to enforce our contract. Anyways, we have nothing to lose either way. I rather not work for shrewd business people who disregard others in their business dealings while telling us with a smile that we should see them as our "life boat" and at the same time ask us to take 16% concessions to be cost competitive with Skywest pilots. All because he wants to keep separate lists to whipsaw us with. With JO and HK, at least they are up front with screwing you. Its so disingenuous its disgusting.

It is easy to say that on an internet message board but very few people follow through with that type of thinking when their job is on the line. What will you do if the arbitrator says that by ASA being a holding company and the official purchaser of XJT, SkyWest Inc is not liable for XJT scope requirements? Will you quit? Would you rather be unemployed without jobless benefits than work for the new ASA? Just curious. My first choice is to merge all three groups but if we can't get that it seems like economic reality tells us that merging with ASA is still a good thing. I commend you for standing up for what you believe is right but I disagree that it should be an all of nothing deal.

 

[Nevets]

It is easy to say that on an internet message board but very few people follow through with that type of thinking when their job is on the line. What will you do if the arbitrator says that by ASA being a holding company and the official purchaser of XJT, SkyWest Inc is not liable for XJT scope requirements? Will you quit? Would you rather be unemployed without jobless benefits than work for the new ASA? Just curious. My first choice is to merge all three groups but if we can't get that it seems like economic reality tells us that merging with ASA is still a good thing. I commend you for standing up for what you believe is right but I disagree that it should be an all of nothing deal.

The MEC was confronted with this two years ago. And we told JA one list or no deal. Here, they may have found a loophole. But I will stand my ground on one list even if the deal is broken off like it was two years ago and deal with it like we did two years ago rather than not do anything just because we think it might brake the deal. If we cannot get one list I rather walk away again. If we cannot, at least we stood our ground and will deal with it in contract negotiations (which is probably exactly what JA wants to extract concessions). I honestly wish it was an all or nothing deal but I don't think SKW is pulling out of this one. SKW has put a lot of time and energy into this now for over two years. They want us. We didn't go looking for them.

 

[cybourg10]

The MEC was confronted with this two years ago. And we told JA one list or no deal. Here, they may have found a loophole. But I will stand my ground on one list even if the deal is broken off like it was two years ago and deal with it like we did two years ago rather than not do anything just because we think it might brake the deal. If we cannot get one list I rather walk away again. If we cannot, at least we stood our ground and will deal with it in contract negotiations (which is probably exactly what JA wants to extract concessions). I honestly wish it was an all or nothing deal but I don't think SKW is pulling out of this one. SKW has put a lot of time and energy into this now for over two years. They want us. We didn't go looking for them.

Well "we" can't choose to walk away again. It was SkyWest who walked away in 2008. The pilots do not get to control who runs the company. Sometimes I think we get too big headed into thinking we are the BOD. I agree with you that we should fight for the 3 way merger but if it falls through then shame on us for not having better language in our contract. We still have more to gain merging with ASA on an economic and QOL level than staying just XJT and you can not rationally argue that. We can not walk away from a deal that is out of our control. We as employees do not get a say in whether these transactions go through or not. If you want to be the decider go get an MBA and get promoted. I know you wish it wasn't so but reality sucks sometimes. I honestly don't believe that you would rather be going through bankruptcy proceedings than JCBA talks despite your current frustration with the deal.

 

[Nevets]

Well "we" can't choose to walk away again. It was SkyWest who walked away in 2008. The pilots do not get to control who runs the company. Sometimes I think we get too big headed into thinking we are the BOD. I agree with you that we should fight for the 3 way merger but if it falls through then shame on us for not having better language in our contract. We still have more to gain merging with ASA on an economic and QOL level than staying just XJT and you can not rationally argue that. We can not walk away from a deal that is out of our control. We as employees do not get a say in whether these transactions go through or not. If you want to be the decider go get an MBA and get promoted. I know you wish it wasn't so but reality sucks sometimes. I honestly don't believe that you would rather be going through bankruptcy proceedings than JCBA talks despite your current frustration with the deal.

I'll be honest and say that I'm not married to this company, this career, or even this profession. I'll be fine no matter what happens. Which is why I've said that obviously I only speak for myself here.

I didn't say we had a choice. I said I would rather walk away if we cant get one list. And I said that this is done deal regardless. Many people say that if we force one list, SKW backs out of the deal. I'm not convinced that is the case but if it is, GREAT! I also don't think we will be going bankrupt. Just as we are a good value to SKW, we would bring good value to anyone else. Honestly, I would rather be part of one list at TSA holdings then to be part of two list at SKW holdings. No more whipsaw from regional management against their own employees. You shouldn't make decisions solely out of fear.

 

[BOX OFFICE]

Those were different times. Comair is wholly owned as well.

Times are no different. Unless you have the market cornered, it's never a good idea to price yourself out of the game. Even if you succeed in a 3 way, there will still be whipsaw against you from Trans States, Go Jets, Mesa, and whatever other regional they choose to invent. The mainline carriers will continue to put RFPs for their flying and choose the lowest bidder. It's noble to beat your chest and call for sticking it up SkyWest's posterior, and you may succeed in the short run, but in the long run, you will probably end up like Comair. The ASA pilots already learned that lesson, and they will probably not fall on their swords with you, so good luck.

 

[Nevets]

Times are no different. Unless you have the market cornered, it's never a good idea to price yourself out of the game. Even if you succeed in a 3 way, there will still be whipsaw against you from Trans States, Go Jets, Mesa, and whatever other regional they choose to invent. The mainline carriers will continue to put RFPs for their flying and choose the lowest bidder. It's noble to beat your chest and call for sticking it up SkyWest's posterior, and you may succeed in the short run, but in the long run, you will probably end up like Comair. The ASA pilots already learned that lesson, and they will probably not fall on their swords with you, so good luck.

Not asking for you to fall on your sword. Frankly, this is between XJT pilots and Inc management. It is our contract your management has decided to violate rather than to work with us. Whatever comes of it, ASA and SKW pilots are along for the ride if XJT is successful or not.

I get the whole pricing yourself out. But we are paid so meagerly for what we do, its not up to us anymore to remain cost competitive. If managment is so good and smart, they must find other ways to save money other than off the backs of pilots. XJT has one of the best regional contracts and yet has one of the lowest casm. There is no need for the pilots to take any concessions, on the contrary. Just look at SWA as a perfect example of best compensated pilots and being cost competitive enough to be successful. And I understand that mainline management will whipsaw us against others. But lets not let our own management to double down on that whipsaw. Two wrongs don't make anything right.

 

[cybourg10]

Not asking for you to fall on your sword. Frankly, this is between XJT pilots and Inc management. It is our contract your management has decided to violate rather than to work with us. Whatever comes of it, ASA and SKW pilots are along for the ride if XJT is successful or not.

I get the whole pricing yourself out. But we are paid so meagerly for what we do, its not up to us anymore to remain cost competitive. If managment is so good and smart, they must find other ways to save money other than off the backs of pilots. XJT has one of the best regional contracts and yet has one of the lowest casm. There is no need for the pilots to take any concessions, on the contrary. Just look at SWA as a perfect example of best compensated pilots and being cost competitive enough to be successful. And I understand that mainline management will whipsaw us against others. But lets not let our own management to double down on that whipsaw. Two wrongs don't make anything right.

Stop calling it a violation of our contract. Stop calling it a wrong. You are not a lawyer. You don't know what is a violation and what is not. We need to stop acting like a child that got there feelings hurt and start to realize the business and legal reality of this. If the arbitrator says it is a violation than we can call it that, if they say what Inc did was legal than you have to accept that. I am curious as to why you think you know what is legally right and wrong here. Stop talking about our contract like it is comparable to the former AirWisc or ACA contracts. Who cares about our low CASM if our RASM is even lower. Don't be a part of the management and corporations are evil crowd. If our contract is so great why does Inc and their lawyers think they got around it? Our failing company just got bought and you want to brag about our low CASM and great contract? I am with you that I hope we get merged into three lists but lets not run our mouth about how great we are. Let the lawyers figure out what is a violation and what is not, you can not go into with your mind made up or else no one will take you seriously.

 

[Nevets]

Stop calling it a violation of our contract. Stop calling it a wrong. You are not a lawyer. You don't know what is a violation and what is not. We need to stop acting like a child that got there feelings hurt and start to realize the business and legal reality of this. If the arbitrator says it is a violation than we can call it that, if they say what Inc did was legal than you have to accept that. I am curious as to why you think you know what is legally right and wrong here. Stop talking about our contract like it is comparable to the former AirWisc or ACA contracts. Who cares about our low CASM if our RASM is even lower. Don't be a part of the management and corporations are evil crowd. If our contract is so great why does Inc and their lawyers think they got around it? Our failing company just got bought and you want to brag about our low CASM and great contract? I am with you that I hope we get merged into three lists but lets not run our mouth about how great we are. Let the lawyers figure out what is a violation and what is not, you can not go into with your mind made up or else no one will take you seriously.

I've made it clear and have said it many times, I speak only for myself. I'm not afraid that if we push this issue that SKW may pull out of the deal. I personally feel that it doesn't matter what we do. SKW is buying us. And if that means an arbitrator or judge decides that its all legal, I'll accept that as well and move on to the next battle. But that does not make it right. It is clear what SKW is trying to do. The intent of our contract is also clear. It was clearly written to prevent this exact thing. As for our rasm being low, you can thank SKW for their helping CAL in whispsawing us. We were forced to sign their cpa with cal with the low rates that SKW used in the assumption we would take a 16% pay cut in order to be in parity with SKW pilots. What SKW has done may be legal but it certainly is not right. Especially when BR says on his conference call that they want to treat us with dignity and respect. If he was being genuine, he would start by abiding by our contract. You can go ahead and sell yourself short but I wont no matter how much you think our company is failing. The fact of the matter is that we are valuable enough to SKW for them to go through all this trouble. We will be valuable to others as well. Its not the end of the world if they don't buy us.

 

[BOX OFFICE]

Not asking for you to fall on your sword. Frankly, this is between XJT pilots and Inc management. It is our contract your management has decided to violate rather than to work with us. Whatever comes of it, ASA and SKW pilots are along for the ride if XJT is successful or not.

I get the whole pricing yourself out. But we are paid so meagerly for what we do, its not up to us anymore to remain cost competitive. If managment is so good and smart, they must find other ways to save money other than off the backs of pilots. XJT has one of the best regional contracts and yet has one of the lowest casm. There is no need for the pilots to take any concessions, on the contrary. Just look at SWA as a perfect example of best compensated pilots and being cost competitive enough to be successful. And I understand that mainline management will whipsaw us against others. But lets not let our own management to double down on that whipsaw. Two wrongs don't make anything right.

I don't work for ASA or SkyWest, so as I said before, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just trying to offer you some insight into how SkyWest does business. Because the road you are campaigning for your pilot group to take is a dead end. Piss Jerry off, and you will see what you get. Work with him, and your company will prosper more than you could imagine. ASA was a piece of garbage until SW bought them. Now look, they're actually a respectable airline, and still have one of the best contracts in the regionals.

You need more leaders like cybourg and less than Nevets if you are going to survive in the SkyWest family. Cool heads will prevail. I'm just saying.

 

[Nevets]

I don't work for ASA or SkyWest, so as I said before, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just trying to offer you some insight into how SkyWest does business. Because the road you are campaigning for your pilot group to take is a dead end. Piss Jerry off, and you will see what you get. Work with him, and your company will prosper more than you could imagine. ASA was a piece of garbage until SW bought them. Now look, they're actually a respectable airline, and still have one of the best contracts in the regionals.

You need more leaders like cybourg and less than Nevets if you are going to survive in the SkyWest family. Cool heads will prevail. I'm just saying.

It has become very apparent to me in the last two years on exactly how Skywest does business. I'm not trying to lead anybody. Just stating my opinion that I would prefer that JA simply abide by our contract. If he wants his employees to play nice, great. We got along with our management pretty good. But unfortunately he has taken us on a road that is not pleasant for any of us. We did not come from a garbage airline where we were not treated fairly. We come from a respectable airline and have one of the best contracts in the regionals. It doesn't hurt us at all to try to enforce the clear intent of the contract. If that becomes a dead end as you say, so be it. We will deal with it in contract negotiations. There is no reason why we shouldn't expect and insist to be treated fairly because there is nothing to lose, especially if you are of the mentality that this is a done deal regardless of what the pilots do. We can be professional about it and smile back while trying to unscrew the screwing we are taking.

 

[Baronman]

I don't work for ASA or SkyWest, so as I said before, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just trying to offer you some insight into how SkyWest does business. Because the road you are campaigning for your pilot group to take is a dead end. Piss Jerry off, and you will see what you get. Work with him, and your company will prosper more than you could imagine. ASA was a piece of garbage until SW bought them. Now look, they're actually a respectable airline, and still have one of the best contracts in the regionals.

You need more leaders like cybourg and less than Nevets if you are going to survive in the SkyWest family. Cool heads will prevail. I'm just saying.

Work with Jerry and my company will prosper more than I can imagine? I HIGHLY doubt that.

So what you're saying is that us pilots (XJT) should overlook that section of our contract to appease Jerry? Ok fine. Will you promise me that no whipsaw will occur?

Let me ask you a question. Why doesn't Jerry want to integrate all three airlines? Simple question.

 

[Oakum_Boy]

Obortion just endorsed a mosque at ground zero and here we are squabbling over a few senority numbers.

 

[sunlitpath]

Skywest did not walk away from the first deal. They were fully prepared to execute the transaction. Expressjet rejected the offer because they felt the price was too low. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp%3Fchannel%3Dcomm%26id%3Dnews/exp04258.xml

 

[CiFIknow]

I think the best long-term best situation for all pilots at XJT/ASA/SKW is to have one list. In the short-term I am sure we all are wanting things to stay "status quo" as far as what A/C we are flying and we want to stay in our present bases, albeit I'm sure there are some on the XJT side who would love to be based in an ASA or SKW domicile and vice versa. We can figure out how to mitigate unwanted displacements in negotiations of the SLI. I do, however, get a chuckle about the many, many references to "Don't piss Jerry off", or "work with Jerry and he will work with you". At XJT we had a good relationship with our past management and we worked well together to try to solve our mutual problems. Just because we are unionized does not automatically make it an adversarial process. Our present CEO has taken a more adversarial approach and we are seeing what comes from that in our many grievances we have filed recently.

For one, I don't believe SKW Inc. will walk from this deal over this issue. With the acquisition of XJT they will be guaranteed to be the single largest regional carrier for the new United for the next 10 years. All for the small price tag of $163 million. A BARGAIN!! Sure, Jerry the anointed genius could walk away and hope for us to go under and pick up the pieces later. But I doubt he would be willing to gamble on that.

I know we all have our personal reasons that want to preserve what we have today for the short-term. However, I think a single list would promote more stability and better prospects for the future for the pilots at all three carriers than just an XJT/ASA merger.

 

[Nevets]

Skywest did not walk away from the first deal. They were fully prepared to execute the transaction. Expressjet rejected the offer because they felt the price was too low. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=comm&id=news/exp04258.xml

That is false. The XJT BOD did reject the first offer. They negotiated a new price but but SKW put contingencies that required them to negotiate with the XJT MEC. Technically SKW did walk away because the XJT MEC would not throw out their scope and holding letter.

 

[outtahere]

Oh, you are soooo important!!! This whole time I just thought you were an airline pilot, I didn't realize you were "SUPER DORK"!!! My bad.

 

[007]

I can't believe you guys, overlooking some important issues here:
Which group wears more cowboy boots in the cockpit?

Clearly XJT, I mean we have all those Texans......that's gotta give us the edge.

 

[Baronman]

Clearly XJT, I mean we have all those Texans......that's gotta give us the edge.

It's true...we have many boot wearing, sunglasses hanging off the epaulets rocking pilots.

 

[unclemike]

Most importantly, I think it's important that this discussion not get personal. We will soon be part of a new, well-run company that is the largest in the regional industry, serving the two largest majors in the world. We have two great pilot groups that will really move the combined company forward.

I am an ASA pilot, and I'm thinking about what's fair first, and then how things will impact me. But no matter what happens with this pilot integration, I welcome XJet guys and no hard feelings.

That being said, I think the concept of relative seniority is fundamentally flawed. To think that if ASA merged with, say Compass, and a 4 yr Compass captain would be senior to a 28-yr ASA captain would be ludicrous. In order for a model to be valid it needs to work for any scenario, and it clearly does not in this case.

I've been furloughed by two regional carriers, and finally found a good one (ASA) on my third. I've learned the hard way that DOH is what matters. And it still matters now. Relative seniority would be giving dozens of guys junior to me months or years of seniority. This isn't Christmas.

For the Relative seniority guys that can't understand why some ASA guys (and some XJet guys) don't get your argument, my own case is a great example. I can't relocate from ATL for personal reasons. With "relative seniority," I would now have about one hundred new junior guys that could bid my domicile in front of me that I didn't have before this merger. Is that fair? I know I choose to stay in ATL, but with my DOH, that is my right. I know some ATL ASA guys above me might chose EWR or IAH and that it might be a "wash." But the "odds" and what "might be" shouldn't be part of this equation. My DOH should rule. As should everyone's.

I'm not trying to gain anything. But with my unwillingness to relocate, I'd stand to lose, maybe painfully, with relative seniority. I'd be open to some sort of DOH with strict fences for a while so that no XJet person loses anything. Someone even mentioned going to relative seniority for a while, and then snapping back to DOH after a number of years. That could be workable too. I really don't want anyone to lose in this.

The bottom line is, that no matter how contentious this argement may get, we should'nt let the rhetoric or the decision get in the way of a harmonious integration. Two sides trying to protect themselves is no cause for any personal attacks.