SWA going against McCaskill Bond?

[Kharma Police]

1,2, and 3 are spot on. As for your opening and closing statements,well...
Good luck with that. ALPA will be tied up in bankruptcy court. I am sure many of your brethren at Air tran are beginning to realize how bad you f'&$@k up.
That's why the ice cream dork told you to STFU.

That's right, Kaka! BTW, I'm working on a green pistachio blend just for you! I'll let you know in about 8 hours when it's ready!

 

[texman]

This is more than likely the playbook SWA is following and more than likely will continue to follow until this thing is done. The way I see it, is that it will give the Airtan pilots plenty of ammo for a very large class action lawsuit.

1. ALPA MEC votes down the SLI knowing it is not fair and equitable. GK annouces the following Monday that the sky is falling in regards to the economy and plans to fly SW metal in and out of ATL on Airtran routes.

2. Mediation does not produce results and some 717s are parked or sold and furloughs are announced on the Airtran side.

3. After months of waiting the Arbitrated list is put out with seniority gains for Airtran pilots. SWAPA is furious and GK will not have his culture ruined so he continues the separte operations of the two companies. Over the next year and a half Airtran aircraft are slowly sold or parked and Airtan as we know it no longer exists.

I believe if this evidence was to go to court it would show that SWA never intended to give the pilots of Airtran a fair shake. Now i'm not talking about the finacial package that was presented to us i'm talking about a fair and equitable seniority agreement.

I think you are wrong!

1. SWA holdings owns AT. SWA can do what ever it wants with AT.

2. M/B is a law that states you have negotiate in a fair and equitable way which SWA/SWAPA/MC has done. Your MEC turned it down.

3. SL9 protected you from furlough, not so much any more.

4. SWA holdings can furlough if they want, again you can not tell a right to work state company how to run a company.

5. SWA GAVE AND MAY CONSIDER ANOTHER FAIR DEAL.

6. If you think this is a cake and eat it too deal for us look in the mirror my friend.

7. SWA is not LEGALLY BOUNDED TO MERGE BOTH OPERATIONS!

Don't think so negative! SWA is loosing money because of the lack of immediate synergies, and ALPA is not helping. So if the secondary company is causing pain finically to the primary one, what would you do as a CEO?

Please quit thinking like a pilot.

 

[Andy]

2. Mediation does not produce results and some 717s are parked or sold and furloughs are announced on the Airtran side.

Anything coming out of mediation will be less than what was offered in SL9. Or no agreement will come out of mediation.

3. After months of waiting the Arbitrated list is put out with seniority gains for Airtran pilots. SWAPA is furious and GK will not have his culture ruined so he continues the separte operations of the two companies. Over the next year and a half Airtran aircraft are slowly sold or parked and Airtan as we know it no longer exists.

Arbitration? I don't see that happening. If you guys don't agree to something less than SL9, the airlines will be operated under two separate certificates.

I believe if this evidence was to go to court it would show that SWA never intended to give the pilots of Airtran a fair shake. Now i'm not talking about the finacial package that was presented to us i'm talking about a fair and equitable seniority agreement.

I'm an outsider with no skin in the game. You guys got a very fair offer in SL9. You chose to try for more. You're not going to get more than was offered in SL9; any future offers will be for less.

You need to read the McCaskill Bond Amendment. It specifically states that it applies to two or more carriers that are combined. As in one operating certificate. If they keep the two operations separate, McCaskill Bond is not applicable. http://www.afaonevoice.org/images/mccaskill text.pdf

If you're on a separate certificate, Southwest will turn back the 100 leases and sell off the 38 owned aircraft over time. Do you really think that merging your aircraft and employees will be easier than simply expanding Southwest's operations while shrinking AirTran to zero?
If you'd stop thinking like a pilot (as Texman said) and evaluate the situation, you'd know that the numbers have already been run for both scenarios. It may be a little messy and cost a bit more but the boys in Dallas already have the numbers and plans in hand. They will likely stop working on plan A (integration) and start executing plan B. I don't know why this is so hard for you guys to understand.

 

[General Lee]

This is more than likely the playbook SWA is following and more than likely will continue to follow until this thing is done. The way I see it, is that it will give the Airtan pilots plenty of ammo for a very large class action lawsuit.

1. ALPA MEC votes down the SLI knowing it is not fair and equitable. GK annouces the following Monday that the sky is falling in regards to the economy and plans to fly SW metal in and out of ATL on Airtran routes.

2. Mediation does not produce results and some 717s are parked or sold and furloughs are announced on the Airtran side.

3. After months of waiting the Arbitrated list is put out with seniority gains for Airtran pilots. SWAPA is furious and GK will not have his culture ruined so he continues the separte operations of the two companies. Over the next year and a half Airtran aircraft are slowly sold or parked and Airtan as we know it no longer exists.

I believe if this evidence was to go to court it would show that SWA never intended to give the pilots of Airtran a fair shake. Now i'm not talking about the finacial package that was presented to us i'm talking about a fair and equitable seniority agreement.

But, as OYS has pointed out, what if the other groups, like flight attendants and Mechanics, did accept the Southwest offer, and they wanted to go forward. Would GK keep everything seperate if only one of the groups wanted to go to Arbitration? What would stockholders and board members say about that? Maybe they would tell GK to "eat it?" But, you're right, there has been some legislation (like Bond Mckaskil) that does protect how workers are integrated. This will be fun to watch, but I think the Airtran pilots will probably go to arbitration, and get a heck of a lot better deal than they were offered. That award will be binding. If GK wants to flush everything down the toilet, then that's up to him, and a lot of other people are now counting on him, not just his corndog pilots.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Bake]

This message is hidden because General Lee is on your ignore list.

dam, I love this feature.

 

[CaptAntoineMack]

General,

The pilots, flight attendants and mechanics can have separate integration processes.

Do I really need to say more?

 

[texman]

Gen,

You are correct about the other employee groups, but both Pilot groups are leading the other groups. The MX, dispatchers, Fa's are all waiting on us.

 

[General Lee]

Anything coming out of mediation will be less than what was offered in SL9. Or no agreement will come out of mediation.



Arbitration? I don't see that happening. If you guys don't agree to something less than SL9, the airlines will be operated under two separate certificates.



I'm an outsider with no skin in the game. You guys got a very fair offer in SL9. You chose to try for more. You're not going to get more than was offered in SL9; any future offers will be for less.

You need to read the McCaskill Bond Amendment. It specifically states that it applies to two or more carriers that are combined. As in one operating certificate. If they keep the two operations separate, McCaskill Bond is not applicable. http://www.afaonevoice.org/images/mccaskill text.pdf

If you're on a separate certificate, Southwest will turn back the 100 leases and sell off the 38 owned aircraft over time. Do you really think that merging your aircraft and employees will be easier than simply expanding Southwest's operations while shrinking AirTran to zero?
If you'd stop thinking like a pilot (as Texman said) and evaluate the situation, you'd know that the numbers have already been run for both scenarios. It may be a little messy and cost a bit more but the boys in Dallas already have the numbers and plans in hand. They will likely stop working on plan A (integration) and start executing plan B. I don't know why this is so hard for you guys to understand.

What are you smoking? The Airtran guys got hosed. What a crock. The bottom 60% put in the Southwest bottom 20%? Their CEO chose to do this deal, not SWAPA. Just because the SWA contract is superior, doesn't mean the Airtran guys, who had no choice in the matter, have to bow down to SWAPA. The arbitrators will see what EACH airline brings to the table, and then decide how the SLI will go, FAIRLY. Southwest is the bigger airline, and will have better ratios, but the airlines have the same sized planes, and both have similar operations. Even Airtran flies INTL routes, something Southwest pilots haven't learned yet because they are still trying to perfect VNAV and Autothrottles.

Andy, take a look at the recent arbitration awards to see how things worked out, for NWA, Coglan, and Republic/Frontier. If the Airtran guys go to Arbitration, they probably will see better positions on the overall list, and then at that point GK has to decide how long he wants to hold out, and not achieve synergies that will save his company millions.



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Andy]

But, as OYS has pointed out, what if the other groups, like flight attendants and Mechanics, did accept the Southwest offer, and they wanted to go forward. Would GK keep everything seperate if only one of the groups wanted to go to Arbitration? What would stockholders and board members say about that? Maybe they would tell GK to "eat it?" But, you're right, there has been some legislation (like Bond Mckaskil) that does protect how workers are integrated. This will be fun to watch, but I think the Airtran pilots will probably go to arbitration, and get a heck of a lot better deal than they were offered. That award will be binding. If GK wants to flush everything down the toilet, then that's up to him, and a lot of other people are now counting on him, not just his corndog pilots.


Bye Bye---General Lee

If the AirTran pilots don't agree then the rest of AirTran's employees won't even get a chance to integrate. The flight attendants don't even start discussing SLI until the end of this month.

 

[General Lee]

Gen,

You are correct about the other employee groups, but both Pilot groups are leading the other groups. The MX, dispatchers, Fa's are all waiting on us.

Tex,

That doesn't bode well for the pilots, on the SWA side. If the other groups want to merge, then that will put some pressure on GK. The share holders and bankers want this deal to go through, also. Will GK rest this whole deal on the pilots, or just eventually point at an eventual arbitration award and possibly say "sorry guys, deal with it, it's binding."


Bye Bye---General Lee