Actually, that will make 6.
Me and DL are #'s 1 and 2. Sep 18th will mark the 2 year anniversary of our termination dates, with Arbitrations scheduled sometime in Nov/Dec (haven't received the exact date back yet), with a ruling 90-180 days after that. It'll likely be close to 3 years total time out before this is resolved and we're back online.
Our first officer who was suspended for dropping his kids off at the circus in PARTIAL uniform ON HIS WAY TO WORK and staying for 20-30 minutes before he had to leave to make his show time is #3.
Our two newest are #'s 4 and 5, and are HIGHLY active union officials, amusingly enough on the SAFETY committee, and fired for doing their job in the safest way possible. Funny, I thought SAFETY was our company's #1 operations priority...
The next one that will allegedly get his termination letter today is #6, IF that happens. There's nothing official about this rumor, but it matches with what has been going on with the other hostages. Rumor also has it the company is also grumbling about several more hostages to come, including a couple MEC officials to go with it, in the next 30 days if the pilots don't back down. It's a game of Brinkmanship now... who's going to blink first?
Anyone who didn't see this coming hasn't been paying attention. The most openly-hostile management group in the industry today, with their ex-Eastern backgrounds and 10 years of anti-labor rulings from bankruptcy courts, and you thought they were just going to roll over and give us a decent contract and stop using fear and intimidation tactics to rule the pilot group? Things will get worse before they get better.
All the pilots out right now SHOULD be covered by ALPA's Section 60.M Flight Pay Loss since all of us were actively serving in appointed committee positions and it's known there is NO legal basis for our terminations. But the next group of guys they go after may not be.
Ugly is the best word to describe an AirTran career right now. Low wages, constant contract reinterpretation, status quo violations, long contract mediation, no pay raises, and management threats and hostile work environment. Many who came here thought this was going to be the next Southwest... joke's on us.
