Couple of questions for you.
1. I had no idea NWA / Republic fight is still going on. What do you mean by "who gets what aircraft"? Do NWA pilots and Republic pilots have aircraft 'fences' from the old merger deal?
2. Speaking of senior wide-body guys, are NWA guys trying to get fair representation for the junior / narrow-body folks? You know...the senior guys are not the only ones in the union...right??
Heyas Prop,
Well, it's like this. The old fences (AKA The Roberts Award) dropped dead 12/31/2006. But old habits/grudges die hard. Now that the fences are gone, the redbook pilots (old NWA), who had protected widebody seats for 20 years are grumpy that the relatively senior greenbook pilots (ex Republic) can now bid them unrestricted. There are lots of claims about how such and such aircraft are "replacements" for parked aircraft and other such nonsense.
The greenbook guys consider the matter over and done, and had dismantled their merger committee, while the redbook guys are still frothing at the mouth trying to carve out their nitches. But they managed to get the ear of Prater, which has forced the whole thing back. IMHO, both sides suck for dragging this out and wasting more money on it.
The other issue you bring up, the representation issue, has only recently become a BIG issue with the reelection of the MEC chairman. NWA has two small WB crewbases, SEA and ANC, which have 5 voting reps total (2 for SEA, and 3 for ANC, since ANC has SOs). With the MSP CA rep, who is married to a WB pilot (which means he is defacto WB), they essentially control the election of MEC officers, as well as the agenda.
This USED to be tempered by the fact that MSP and DTW had a extra rep each (SO rep), but since there are no more 3 man aircraft in those bases, that rep went away.
In this last election, reps who represent the numerical majority of pilots (say about 65 perent, the MSP FO rep and the DTW reps, as well as one of the MEM reps) voted for the guy that would have been more agressive with the company. But you don't elect MEC officers by roll call, only "senatorial", which means the small, WB bases can elect whoever they want. The guy who represented the more agressive stance against the company, and who got the votes representing %65 of the pilot group, was defeated by the guy the WB pilots wanted.
Since they are in control, you are going to have a pretty hard time changing the representational structure to something more balanced.
This has has led to the general thought that the Targeted Benefit Plan, potential merger issues, and in fact, most dealings with the company will not favor the mid-junior and/or NB pilots. It tends to make everyone in that group fairly grumpy, especially when those guys are in the majority.
Nu
) TC
