My response to SWA package!

[redflyer65]

As for the rest, it's ludicrous to use the old rates. They don't exist anymore and can't be rolled back. This point moving forward is all that matters in the real world of how much money they have deposited every month for their flying as an AAI CA versus a SWA F/O. What used to be doesn't matter. What's happening now does.

Lear,

I have to completely disagree with you on this. The AAI new contract was completely greased after Gary announced the purchase. Can we agree on that point? I mean you guys were doing the best you could with what you had, but Bob was pulling a Heisman on you guys..and it was going to continue until the absolute last minute.

Question...

If Southwest and SWAPA passed an LOA tomorrow for a 30% pay increase across the board, could we use that with the arbitration panel? It's the same arguement, just on the other side.

How about this..we get a nice pay raise in Sept. It will be either 2 or 3%. Should we able to use those 'new' numbers?

Bottom line...where's the starting point? It has to be Sept. 27th, anything after that has been affected by the announcement.

RF

 

[Flycatcher99]

Lear,

I have to completely disagree with you on this. The AAI new contract was completely greased after Gary announced the purchase. Can we agree on that point? I mean you guys were doing the best you could with what you had, but Bob was pulling a Heisman on you guys..and it was going to continue until the absolute last minute.

RF

Exactly. Look, I'm not trying to agitate, Lear, only making a point. It is disingenuous to compare the SWA payrates against the payrates that you received as a result of the acquisition. Much like it was disingenuous that some AAI guys on here were claiming that the strike vote was irrelevant in comparing a pilot position at AAI versus SWA.

If it makes you feel any better, if it is possible for there to be a pay loss in coming onboard, there is no way SWA would let that happen for you guys.

 

[Flycatcher99]

If you're looking for "equal gain", you're not going to find it. If you can get past that and find that *SOME* gains on your side are worth signing off on helping Southwest move forward and compete better in the market place, great. If not, then debating you is rather pointless. I'd be better spent utilizing my time debating someone who isn't already a "NO" vote, regardless of what the outcome is unless it's a pure seniority windfall for SWA pilots at AAI pilots' expense (because an outcome like that is doomed to failure on our side and is such a non-starter our MC won't ever bring it to us - they already promised that - it'll go to arbitration before that happens).

Only the truly naive will expect "equal gain". And (please don't be offended by this) that is because, in a SWA pilot's estimation, there is no way we can gain as much as you all are by coming onboard here. The problem is that the "SOME" gains you are promising us, don't seem to be very evident in the suggestions some AAI folk are making.

 

[B727Driver]

How happy were the AT guys with their management or company on Sept. 26th?
There were people leaving at a pretty good clip with a strike vote in place.
Seven plus years of no contract and no ‘luv’ there.
Wow, what a difference a day makes.

 

[PCL_128]

Lear, the AAI pilots get immediate gains, the SWA pilots merely "lose nothing" how is that fair and equitbable...don't we deserve immediate gains also (not the distant hope of growth and profit sharing which OBTW the former AAI pilots will share)?

Yes, I believe you do. That's something you should negotiate with your management.

Question...

If Southwest and SWAPA passed an LOA tomorrow for a 30% pay increase across the board, could we use that with the arbitration panel? It's the same arguement, just on the other side.

How about this..we get a nice pay raise in Sept. It will be either 2 or 3%. Should we able to use those 'new' numbers?

You can use any numbers you want. Old, new, made up, it doesn't matter. The arbitrator doesn't care. He's going to be merging seniority lists, not pay scales.

 

[Ty Webb]

You guys who keep beating this drum aren't ever going to convince ANY AirTran guys that our contract negotiations benefitted because of the merger announcement. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and although I'm sure it makes sense to you (not having all of the pieces) that is NOT what happened. We got way LESS than we would have, had we been released by the NMB, which we were finally getting close to. In my case, I got 8% instead of the 15-20% I should have gotten after 6 years, which would have at least kept up with inflation.

For you to keep insisting that the ******************** sandwich we accepted after the announcement was somehow the beneficiary of the merger announcement just makes you look uninformed and foolish.

 

[PCL_128]

There were people leaving at a pretty good clip with a strike vote in place.

Um, no. Average attrition from 2008 forward was 1-2 pilots per month, including medical retirements, deaths, terminations, and resignations.

 

[Lear70]

Lear,

I have to completely disagree with you on this. The AAI new contract was completely greased after Gary announced the purchase. Can we agree on that point? I mean you guys were doing the best you could with what you had, but Bob was pulling a Heisman on you guys..and it was going to continue until the absolute last minute.

He probably would have, but we'll just have to agree to disagree on how much it factors into the SLI talks. I asked the MC about that, and they said that, to the extent that SLI talks will compare income pre- and post-merger, the new numbers are being used.

Question...

If Southwest and SWAPA passed an LOA tomorrow for a 30% pay increase across the board, could we use that with the arbitration panel? It's the same arguement, just on the other side.

How about this..we get a nice pay raise in Sept. It will be either 2 or 3%. Should we able to use those 'new' numbers?

Yes, and maybe, as far as it's been explained to me. Once the lists were certified and negotiations began, everything was "frozen" for negotiating points (as far as I understand the process from talks I've had with our MC and MEC).

Again, to the extent that comparing incomes will matter in the SLI discussion, as some have pointed out, there is a rather large discrepancy in income between a SWA pilot and AAI pilot. In dollars, it's likely the largest disconnect in merger history, but in percentage it's fairly similar to what a Colgan CA was making compared to a CRJ900 CA at PCL or MSA. In that acquisition/merger (and in other mergers/acquisitions), the career expectations for income was certainly a factor, but not the largest player.

I expect it will be similar here, except that you actually might get more mileage with our Merger Committee (who actually will be LIVING with the new income) with that argument than you would from an arbitrator, just looking at recent precedent and decisions. I could be wrong though, it's happened before.

 

[Shemya]

An observation

As an outside person looking in I am a bit amazed there is not more discussion of McCaskill-Bond. Clearly that legislation changed airline mergers forever. One person’s opinion to the detriment of the SWA pilots in this merger.

 

[Lear70]

Only the truly naive will expect "equal gain". And (please don't be offended by this) that is because, in a SWA pilot's estimation, there is no way we can gain as much as you all are by coming onboard here. The problem is that the "SOME" gains you are promising us, don't seem to be very evident in the suggestions some AAI folk are making.

I'm not offended by that statement, you're arguing passionately, not rudely, so it's all good. Hopefully my statements come across similarly... :beer:

Unfortunately, I can't promise you anything, I can only go on the growth that our MC, MEC, and Scheduling Committee tell us has to happen pretty quickly if we pick our aircraft frequency (how much each airframe flies per day) to where yours is. (Most of us already fly 80+ hours a month; can't get more flying out of us so if the planes fly more, we need more people.)

If we pick up our STATION frequency to our international destinations (which has been stated repeatedly by your management), we'll also need more people. Maybe we lose some lower-yield domestic cities (although I don't think so.. if our yields are good enough to those cities that we've kept them - yours will be better), but overall I doubt we'll lose more city pairings than we gain.

I'm *HOPING* that Southwest realizes the money gain disparity (which is where I think some of the SWAPA rhetoric is pointed) and steps in to help on the financial end in the immediately-near future with you guys to help "grease the wheels", in addition to whatever might come out of the Merger Committee.

But you can't think that we'd come on here and tell you how much seniority we're willing to give up in order to make it all go down smoothly, can ya? We just can't have that discussion openly right now... sometime in the future over beers when the dust settles, I'm sure people will tell you what they were hoping for and what was their minimum "happy" point. In many cases, they might get one, or both, or might not even get either one, you just never know.

You gotta have faith it will all work out, or it will drive you crazy!