Your entire argument is based on a faulty premise, i.e. that the conditions that were in force before the merger should remain in force after the merger. Again, the whole "career expectations" b.s.
Career expectations was introduced as a way to keep pilots whose airline consisted of narrowbody equipment off the widebody equipment of their merger partner. It was, in effect, just a way of relegating those "inferior" narrowbody pilots from the high paying widebody international flying.
It was, to put it bluntly, a seniority grab. Those pilots who were hired at the widebody operator thought they were "entitled" to those seats because, after all, the narrowbody guys had no "expectation" of ever flying one.
Its the same thing you guys are trying to do to AAI pilots, only you're using pay as the "career expectation".
The single biggest mistake ALPA has made in 50 years was rolling over to UAL pilots in the early '90s and removing DoH as a criteria for SLI mergers and replacing it with "career expectations." And the whole reason they did it was to keep USAir pilots "in their place" in a merger that never went through.
Look, fair is fair. At some point, you're all going to be one group. If SWA persists in trying to make AAI guys second class citizens by stapleing 650 pilots and banning them from upgrading, YOU as a Captain are going to have CRM problems when you fly with them.
Do you really think those stapled pilots aren't going to have a list of guys who jumped the line ahead of them? Your vaunted "SWA culture" is going to take a huge hit. There are still guys who are chapped about the AS/JA SLI and that went down in 1987.
Really, guys. Get over yourselves. Every single red herring you try to apply to screw the AAI pilots is bogus and deep down you know it. You're just trying to advance yourselves at the expense of other guys you're going to have to see every day for the rest of your careers.
