SWA - AAI question

[CaptAntoineMack]

I'd be willing to bet that you are claiming far more credit that you've actually earned. Right ? What have you done to "steadily been approved" your contract (Your words not mine ) If I'm wrong then let me know. If you've spent the last 15 to 20 years building your great company then I'll apologize.

You're near the bottom of the list and hoping for a quick seniority bump. At another groups expense. On your CEO's dime.

Even if I am the most junior pilot I am part of a group that some have 34 years on the property and I am now part of the effort that it is now my responsibility to continue.

Every SWA pilot who currently works or has worked for SWA has made sacrifices to help build this airline what it is today. And not just the pilots, every work group has been asked to do what others will not and share in those rewards for the sacrifice.

With that being said, I have been here longer than your minimum of 15 years. I do have my own personal concerns but I am more concerned about the pilots junior to me that I expect to be treated fairly in this integration. And it certainly is not close to relative seniority.

 

[vixin]

They give SWA ATL, 50 orders and those beautiful 717's. Isnt that enough to please you guys? Geez! Thats what the AAI contract brings that AAI pilots have fought so hard for these last few years.

 

[Hose A. Jiminez]

I could (and have) said the exact same thing.





No one said that SWA isn't the stronger company today. I'm not buying SWA stock, though, I am being integrated into your pilot seniority list.



After reading this board for the past three months, I can take it or leave it. I already have the seat, the base, and the pay I need. I'm not interested in selling my QOL for another $50K.



I am interested in fair and equitable, but these are highly subjective terms. And, no, no one from ALPA has solicited my opinion any time in recent memory. Has your MC asked you for yours? :laugh:

Aww c'mon Bill, Ty a'int "wrong", he's just "D'iffernt".

 

[FlyinHigh737]

They give SWA ATL, 50 orders and those beautiful 717's. Isnt that enough to please you guys? Geez! Thats what the AAI contract brings that AAI pilots have fought so hard for these last few years.

Everyone works to build careers and futures, that’s progression and pride. However, SWA is buying Airtran, SWA pilots help build the revenue and capital to purchase Airtran, whether they were here 2 years or 30. There in lies the pride we feel at SWA. Everyone wants what is fair, it's human nature to want that or better. Someone not wanting more money to put towards their family, retirement or charities and would rather hold on to their left seat status is clearly wearing their 4 stripes to Chilies to eat. Guys, this is an end sum game, and when we look back at our careers we will, without a doubt utter those words "show me the money" not "where is the money".

 

[Tweet-a-Lishus]

Here is the info. Not saying it can happen again but this is how it went down.


More complex example
In the real world it is easy to overestimate BATNA and invest too little time to research real options. This can lead to poor or faulty decision making and negotiating outcomes. 1987 saw the conclusion of a complex series of negotiations between Southwest Airlines and two different pilot groups: Southwest pilots and Muse/Transtar pilots. The Muse/Transtar pilots failed to properly analyze their BATNA: their missteps and misfortune offer valuable lessons for anyone exposed to the risks of negotiating in a volatile industry.

TranStar began as Muse Air amid the 1982 traffic controllers’ strike. By the end of 1984 the company was still struggling, and actively looking for a merger to keep it afloat. At the end of the year, Harold Simmons, president of the Amalgamated Sugar Company offered the airline the money to continue, on the condition that Lamar Muse return as CEO. Despite the new influx of cash and new leadership, the company was not able to generate a consistent profit despite its use of non-union labor and competitive fares.

In 1985, Southwest Airlines acquired Muse Air. The Muse pilots were initially unrepresented so negotiations between ensured between Southwest Airlines and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA). Complicating the always-contentious issue of seniority list integration was the large disparity in pay at the two companies. The difference was so large that the Muse Air operation was unable to support the Southwest Airlines pay scale.

SWAPA pursued a strategy of integrating the Muse pilots to the bottom of the list, with pay parity in five years combined with a card campaign to represent the Muse pilots. This strategy was rejected by the company on the basis of Duty to Fairly Represent and SWAPA agreed to a one time, temporary waiver of their scope clause. This allowed Muse to be run as a separate operation with numerous caveats and protections including a 1:4 growth ratio.

Muse became TranStar and chose independent representation through the TranStar Pilots Association (TPA). Perceiving the dangers inherent in a wholly owned subsidiary the pilot groups attempted to negotiate a combined master seniority list. In November of 1986 an agreement was reached.

This agreement placed a pilot hired in Jun of 1982 by Southwest senior to a TranStar pilot hired in January of 1981 and improved the relative seniority of all Southwest Airlines pilots. The agreement included fences, Captain seat protections and brought the TranStar pilots to pay parity no later than December of 1990.

The TPA Board of Directors rejected the proposed Integrated Seniority List(ISL), apparently believing that such rejection would create more leverage for their Merger Committee to obtain a more favorable ISL.

What followed was a breakdown in negotiations and an angry exchange between union presidents.

"I can only conclude that your inner circle objects to the seniority settlement and engaged in a last minute search for reasons to sabotage the agreement and rationalize the action within your organization. This indicates a lack of good faith, which precludes any further dealings between our two unions." SWAPA President Gerald Bradley to TPA President Captain Golich

"I have waited a few days to respond to your recent letter addressing our unsuccessful negotiations. As you can imagine, it was difficult not to be angered by your groundless accusations, blatant threats and misleading statements." Captain Golich to Captain Bradley.

Negotiations were never resumed and TranStar was operated as a wholly owned subsidiary until the 9th of August 1987 when it closed its’ doors forever. 146 pilots who had seniority numbers at Southwest Airlines, seat protection, and (eventually) substantial raises now had no jobs. Excerpts from a letter Captain Golich wrote to Herb Kelleher on August 2nd:

"As you know, the TranStar pilots are in their darkest hour … I therefore request first right of hire, subject to Southwest’s normal screening, in seniority order, for the TranStar Pilots … … request some form of assistance be provided relative to the requirement for a 737 type rating … … the TranStar pilots will provide their own ground school."

The TPA BOD assessed their BATNA as superior to the agreement their merger committee was able to negotiate. Unfortunately for the pilots they represented this was a gross overestimation, and the actual BATNA turned out to be inferior not only to the negotiated agreement, but even to SWAPA’s opening position of staple.

Unfortunately the mistakes made by the TPA Board of Directors are not unique. The Airline industry is littered with examples of misapplied or overestimated BATNA. BATNA isn’t a walk away position or an assessment of the lowest acceptable offer. It is a tool to assess the certain gains presented in a negotiated agreement against the uncertain risks of the alternative. The uncertainty of those risks can lead to outcomes that are surprising and devastating

 

[Tweet-a-Lishus]

What I find interesting is that the SWA pilots have already negotiated a side letter with the company on a growth ratio in case this happens. It seems that some Airtran pilots on this board, as well as a few SWA haters, think that Bond Mcaskill will prevent this from happening. We all know that there is a way around BM if the negotiations get ugly. Gary Kelly will protect his own first. What nobody wants to acknowledge is that we (SWA) are buying Airtran - not the other way around, and to say that the SWA pilots have nothing to do with your windfall really is just pissing us off like you can't even imagine. The company just didn't hand us our contract. I say BM doesn't seem to be working out too well for Frontier. It seems the Frontier negotiators overplayed their hand. Only time will tell!
I hope ALPA almighty does go ahead and push Gary Kelly a little too much! What I find ironic is that just about every airline that ALPA has represented has been through bankruptcy! To my future Airtran brothers: nobody over on the SWA side expects a staple so please do yourselves a favor and get real with what you expect out if this SLI!

 

[Lear70]

What I find interesting is that the SWA pilots have already negotiated a side letter with the company on a growth ratio in case this happens. It seems that some Airtran pilots on this board, as well as a few SWA haters, think that Bond Mcaskill will prevent this from happening. We all know that there is a way around BM if the negotiations get ugly. Gary Kelly will protect his own first. What nobody wants to acknowledge is that we (SWA) are buying Airtran - not the other way around, and to say that the SWA pilots have nothing to do with your windfall really is just pissing us off like you can't even imagine. The company just didn't hand us our contract. I say BM doesn't seem to be working out too well for Frontier. It seems the Frontier negotiators overplayed their hand. Only time will tell!
I hope ALPA almighty does go ahead and push Gary Kelly a little too much! What I find ironic is that just about every airline that ALPA has represented has been through bankruptcy! To my future Airtran brothers: nobody over on the SWA side expects a staple so please do yourselves a favor and get real with what you expect out if this SLI!

And now you understand why AirTran ALPA won't sign a process agreement without a firm commitment to merge the two seniority lists by a specific, set-in-stone date. Some of you expressed confusion as to why the Process Agreement is being held up, the above is a perfect example of why. It's not personal, it's business... we refuse to put ourselves in the same boat as Muse. Not trying to be in the driver's seat, just making sure we're not a helpless passenger along for the ride with a bad ending.

I understand your frustrations with things being said on this board, and if you look back in the history of this board, there's at least three dozen AirTran pilots who are regular posters. The fact that only half a dozen are posting on here and only one or two are insisting relative seniority from the number 1 person on the SWA list down is the only way to go... well... you make up your own mind on where the *MAJORITY* of AirTran pilots fall in what we think is "fair".

I've noticed more of our AAI pilots posting as things get more contentious and more posts like the one I quoted here pop up from SWA pilot. It's a veiled threat, and no one likes to be threatened; it brings out the worst in people and our people respond in kind and it escalates from there... it doesn't need to be that way.

I'm therefore posting this trying to help "keep the peace" and I'm probably going to draw a lot of heat for it on our private board. The problem we have is that, from all experience with OUR management, if we don't "shoot for the moon" from the very beginning, we always come up on the short side of the stick. So some of our guys were doing the same here, not realizing how polarizing it is, just as your pilots who say "staple" or "Muse" is polarizing to us.

Fair will be somewhere in the middle. I'll leave it to our MC's to figure out where that is. I believe the majority of our pilots feel the same which, in addition to our MC's asking us not to talk about it on here, is why the silence from the AAI camp is so deafening. It's not that we're not engaged, it's that the silent majority is just that... silent, but listening and waiting.

Ya'll fly safe out there... :beer:

 

[texman]

What I find interesting is that the SWA pilots have already negotiated a side letter with the company on a growth ratio in case this happens. It seems that some Airtran pilots on this board, as well as a few SWA haters, think that Bond Mcaskill will prevent this from happening. We all know that there is a way around BM if the negotiations get ugly. Gary Kelly will protect his own first. What nobody wants to acknowledge is that we (SWA) are buying Airtran - not the other way around, and to say that the SWA pilots have nothing to do with your windfall really is just pissing us off like you can't even imagine. The company just didn't hand us our contract. I say BM doesn't seem to be working out too well for Frontier. It seems the Frontier negotiators overplayed their hand. Only time will tell!
I hope ALPA almighty does go ahead and push Gary Kelly a little too much! What I find ironic is that just about every airline that ALPA has represented has been through bankruptcy! To my future Airtran brothers: nobody over on the SWA side expects a staple so please do yourselves a favor and get real with what you expect out if this SLI!

Well said my brother. Like I have said before GK and company will take of it's own first.

 

[scoreboardII]

And now you understand why AirTran ALPA won't sign a process agreement without a firm commitment to merge the two seniority lists by a specific, set-in-stone date.

Gary has said he has no intention and that it would be inappropriate to interfer in the seniority list integration. In other words, he isn't going to give any assurance one way or the other.

He fully realizes the current law provides for relief in the courts, that could be years, your side has just "thrown down" and started that "longer road to peace and prosperity" instead of "day one full up SWA employee".

Now, what do you do when gary says "no deal, can't give a firm date"? Seriously, just want to know.

 

[Bwipilot]

Lear70,

I think I'll enjoy meeting you someday. I agree that the extremes on both sides make us grumpy.

Of course, those extremes do make the wheel go around and expand ones thought process. Just have to remember the other 95% of the groups are shaking their heads too.