SWA/FL Codeshare

[General Lee]

Remember when Airtran wanted to buy ATA and take the planes/gates at MDW and ZERO pilots? And whatever came of Midwest Airlines after the Airtran offer to buy them and screw their pilots?

NWA took Midwest and somehow later it shut down..... As far as AT "wanting" to buy ATA, I bet they wanted to buy a lot of airlines. Usually when seeking approval to buy an airline, you don't say you will close things down or not hire people there. Local Congressmen usually get involved if that is the case....


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Lear70]

Remember when Airtran wanted to buy ATA and take the planes/gates at MDW and ZERO pilots? And whatever came of Midwest Airlines after the Airtran offer to buy them and screw their pilots?

You, sir, are exceptionally misinformed.

First, AirTran wanted to buy ATA assets, not the entire airline, which is totally a management decision, and it never made it off the table from the initial offer so union discussions never happened, so we can't say much about the "what if" of that one.

Secondly, when AirTran made an offer on Midwest Airlines, it made it far enough for the unions to get together. Management stayed out of it, as they should have, and the vast majority of our pilots were calling for mostly a Date of Hire integration.

We still have every string archived from that time period on Dunlap's board, the attitude of our pilots was very clear. Fair integration based loosely around date of hire, fences on bases & equipment, etc.

There was never talk of screwing the Midwest pilots. Instead, TPG Capital made a better offer with NWA and ended up shutting the place down later on.

Just so you have your facts straight.

 

[ATLplt]

When I go over I get a pay cut as well as losing all of the above. I hope they can drag it out forever.

I hear ya, Fletch. Last two Capt's I flew with have already made over $200k this year and are dreading the transition. They live in base. One a 12 year and one a 15 or 16 year guy.

I will say that I see a SWA FO's argument that they'd like to see this thing drag on as well. Anytime an AAI Capt loses his seat the bottom FO's get bounced around the system...certainly not ideal for all parties involved.

 

[Lear70]

Depends on where the SWA FO is on the list. For every CA that comes over, his seat is captured by a SENIOR SWA F/O... at the expense of the AAI CA and the junior SWA FO who now gets booted from his base.

 

[madjack]

We get it, your cheese got moved... Get over it, RSW pilots didn't want this either but u sure couldn't deduce that from the vote results...

 

[General Lee]

We get it, your cheese got moved... Get over it, RSW pilots didn't want this either but u sure couldn't deduce that from the vote results...

So, what do you think would have happened had the AT voted down the 2nd offer?


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[redflyer65]

Non integration. Same as we all tried to tell then on this very forum. Absolutely none of them believed us. Said we were clueless to how this would go down. The rest is history.

 

[freightdogfred]

Non integration. Same as we all tried to tell then on this very forum. Absolutely none of them believed us. Said we were clueless to how this would go down. The rest is history.

So the process agreement, a supposedly binding document, was to be ignored and ya'll knew that? Why did SturmBannFuhrer Kelly sign it in the first place?

Just out of curiosity, what does this "Golden Rule" ya'll tout so highly over there actually mean?

I understand none of you wanted this merger. I don't understand your ability to rationalize and accept blatant disregard for the agreement merely because it betters your perceived position.

 

[Wesb737fo]

We get it, your cheese got moved... Get over it, RSW pilots didn't want this either but u sure couldn't deduce that from the vote results...

all right, enough already. If you claim you want us all to get over this and move on, then, the FIRST thing you need to do... IS STOP TELLING US WE VOTED FOR THIS BECAUSE WE THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD DEAL! If you believe this you may be deluding yourself.

Thank you... you can proceed with your internet mass debating.

 

[Lear70]

Non integration. Same as we all tried to tell then on this very forum. Absolutely none of them believed us. Said we were clueless to how this would go down. The rest is history.

We didn't believe you because we believed Gary Kelly when he signed the Process Agreement that WE also signed in good faith that said we COULD go to arbitration and WOULD be integrated.

In an interesting, roundabout way, that your management's duplicity may eventually help bring the two pilot groups together IF Southwest pilots can ever quit blaming individual AirTran pilots or the pilots as a group and realize that your management team lead us down the path we took. If they had been honest from the beginning and said "If we can't come to an Agreement, we won't let the two airlines be combined", I'm sure this would have come out completely differently. They chose to hide their agenda, and here we are.

You can't change that one, simple fact, and the minute you guys can understand that and quit bashing the AirTran pilot group or its leadership, we might get past this. Truth is, you guys were right about your management team not being interested in playing fair with us, regardless of what they were saying to our faces. They were practicing The Art of War, and did it masterfully.

If you stopped being hostile to us about it and actually showed a little empathy for what we're all going through over here, we'd probably be able to acknowledge the "You were right, we were wrong" part of it as well, and we'd likely start playing nicer with each other.

It really is up to SWA pilots at this point to extend the olive branch. Right now we feel beat up by both management and your union, which translates to the average AirTran line pilot as "SWAPA = SWA pilots" since its pilots who run SWAPA. We're not going to somehow magically start feeling happy and nice after we got denied our rights and corralled into doing what we didn't want to do. You guys are going to have to build some bridges with our group, or we're going to have two very separate pilot groups for a very long time. It'll be a quiet separation, people will be professional and cordial in person, but you won't get the AirTran pilots on board with anything you want to do as a union until the relationship is built.

It's just human nature. We'll see if your union recognizes it EVENTUALLY. They certainly don't now. Hoping they will sooner than later.