SWA to speed up Airtran integration.....article

[Lear70]

The 85% cost themselves everything. Lear70 and I had nothing to do with it. A lack of pilot group backbone did.

In all fairness, PCL, and without getting into it again, a large part of the blame falls with the union leadership at the time (LH) in that they never prepared our pilot group for the kind of fight it would have taken to get to arbitration and then, later, to implement the award.

Would our pilots have stood stronger on it and not buckled and started writing "please staple us" letters if we had? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know. But looking back it seems pretty clear that IF the MC was briefing the MEC that threats were being made about non-integration by SWA senior management BEFORE SIA 1, and IF we were going to continue to play the game of brinkmanship we started to play by voting down SIA 1, we should have prepared our pilots, IN ADVANCE, for the kind of lashback that came shortly thereafter in the GK letter.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I know, but I'm not going to blame our pilots for our failure of leadership (I know, I wasn't in any position at the time of SIA 1, but I still should have seen past the facade of friendliness sooner). It was a battle I would have liked to have fought. Now it's just time to move on. :beer:

 

[maxblast72]

On September 26, 2010, I was working 20 days a month and making $127.15/hr. With little or no growth, I was looking at another 3-5 years of reserve on top of the 4 years of reserve I had already done. In 2008, I was 7 numbers away from getting bumped back to FO (resulting in a $50-60K paycut). After Jet A bottomed around $1.25/gallon in February 2009, Jet A was running around $2.20/gallon by September 2010 (and reached $3/gallon the following spring). Delta and Northwest had completed their merger pretty smoothly and were starting to hit on all cylinders (which usually meant tough competition for little AirTran). These are the type of arguments SWAPA and Jeff Freund would have been making in arbitration. Gary Kelly was allowed to present at the arbitration hearing and you can bet he would have been supporting something less than DOH as fair.

Let's say we had decided to go to arbitration in the fall of 2011. Gary Kelly probably would have broke the news that the B717s were being subleased to Delta about a week before the arbitration hearings were to start. So we would have been walking into arbitration with 52 B737-700s, orders for another 50, and 1,750 pilots. Do you really think an arbitration panel would have given us a list much better than what we got in negotiations? After reading the other employee groups arbitration awards it is pretty obvious the arbitrators didn't view the airline as equals which pretty much rules out obtaining straight DOH from an arbitration panel.

So we ended up getting DOH minus 2.7 years (on average). So lets say we could have received DOH minus 1 or 2 years in arbitration. Was it worth it to give up $100-200K to get another 500 seniority numbers? Some would say yes while others would say no.

Anyway, it is all over now except for the lawsuit to wind its way through the court system. Should be fun to see how it plays out.

 

[Luv2BFlyin]

In all fairness, PCL, and without getting into it again, a large part of the blame falls with the union leadership at the time (LH) in that they never prepared our pilot group for the kind of fight it would have taken to get to arbitration and then, later, to implement the award.

Would our pilots have stood stronger on it and not buckled and started writing "please staple us" letters if we had? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know. But looking back it seems pretty clear that IF the MC was briefing the MEC that threats were being made about non-integration by SWA senior management BEFORE SIA 1, and IF we were going to continue to play the game of brinkmanship we started to play by voting down SIA 1, we should have prepared our pilots, IN ADVANCE, for the kind of lashback that came shortly thereafter in the GK letter.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I know, but I'm not going to blame our pilots for our failure of leadership (I know, I wasn't in any position at the time of SIA 1, but I still should have seen past the facade of friendliness sooner). It was a battle I would have liked to have fought. Now it's just time to move on. :beer:

The fact the NC overstepped thier bounds should not be lost on anyone. A good list would not have required all the flimsy C&R's.

For everyone else reading this outside of WN/FL, who'd have wanted to vote on a deal that would have resulted in up to a 32% seniority loss? Would it have even been worth it? It's embarrassing to even explain to those outside the deal. The most common question I get is "why would you ever vote to accept that?" and my only answer is that 87% were afraid of thier jobs based on hearsay and lack of belief in the current law.

The MEC made the right decision in not even bothering with sending out a sub-standard deal. After that, they got weak due to the sh!t storm created by the NC. There is plenty of blame to go around, however, had the NC not over-stepped thier bounds and left Dallas when negotiations moved passed just a "list", we'd be in a much better position than we are now. Regardless of perceived threats, SWAPA communications, etc., I'd have happily tested MB to achieve a fair SLI.

Like everyone else has said, it's over and we're all learning to deal with it, it's just frustrating when an NC rep defends overstepping thier bounds and acting as if others screwed up when they set the ball in motion.

 

[Luv2BFlyin]

double post

 

[humveedriver]

On September 26, 2010, I was working 20 days a month and making $127.15/hr. With little or no growth, I was looking at another 3-5 years of reserve on top of the 4 years of reserve I had already done. In 2008, I was 7 numbers away from getting bumped back to FO (resulting in a $50-60K paycut). After Jet A bottomed around $1.25/gallon in February 2009, Jet A was running around $2.20/gallon by September 2010 (and reached $3/gallon the following spring). Delta and Northwest had completed their merger pretty smoothly and were starting to hit on all cylinders (which usually meant tough competition for little AirTran). These are the type of arguments SWAPA and Jeff Freund would have been making in arbitration. Gary Kelly was allowed to present at the arbitration hearing and you can bet he would have been supporting something less than DOH as fair.

Let's say we had decided to go to arbitration in the fall of 2011. Gary Kelly probably would have broke the news that the B717s were being subleased to Delta about a week before the arbitration hearings were to start. So we would have been walking into arbitration with 52 B73e7-700s, orders for another 50, and 1,750 pilots. Do you really think an arbitration panel would have given us a list much better than what we got in negotiations? After reading the other employee groups arbitration awards it is pretty obvious the arbitrators didn't view the airline as equals which pretty much rules out obtaining straight DOH from an arbitration panel.

So we ended up getting DOH minus 2.7 years (on average). So lets say we could have received DOH minus 1 or 2 years in arbitration. Was it worth it to give up $100-200K to get another 500 seniority numbers? Some would say yes while others would say no.

Anyway, it is all over now except for the lawsuit to wind its way through the court system. Should be fun to see how it plays out.

See, this is it in a nutshell. It's the junior Captains who are senior in age to the younger more senior Captains that's causing all the strife. Throw in our underpaid FO's for good measure and you have this ultimate haves versus have not dysfunctionality. I'm sorry this deal screwed you Max and anyone else who feels screwed by it. If the first deal had passes you would have gotten a temporary pay raise to SWA CA and then been bumped down to FO with the 717 departure. There would still be something to complain about. There always will be.

 

[Luv2BFlyin]

On September 26, 2010, I was working 20 days a month and making $127.15/hr. With little or no growth, I was looking at another 3-5 years of reserve on top of the 4 years of reserve I had already done. In 2008, I was 7 numbers away from getting bumped back to FO (resulting in a $50-60K paycut). After Jet A bottomed around $1.25/gallon in February 2009, Jet A was running around $2.20/gallon by September 2010 (and reached $3/gallon the following spring). Delta and Northwest had completed their merger pretty smoothly and were starting to hit on all cylinders (which usually meant tough competition for little AirTran). These are the type of arguments SWAPA and Jeff Freund would have been making in arbitration. Gary Kelly was allowed to present at the arbitration hearing and you can bet he would have been supporting something less than DOH as fair.

Let's say we had decided to go to arbitration in the fall of 2011. Gary Kelly probably would have broke the news that the B717s were being subleased to Delta about a week before the arbitration hearings were to start. So we would have been walking into arbitration with 52 B737-700s, orders for another 50, and 1,750 pilots. Do you really think an arbitration panel would have given us a list much better than what we got in negotiations? After reading the other employee groups arbitration awards it is pretty obvious the arbitrators didn't view the airline as equals which pretty much rules out obtaining straight DOH from an arbitration panel.

So we ended up getting DOH minus 2.7 years (on average). So lets say we could have received DOH minus 1 or 2 years in arbitration. Was it worth it to give up $100-200K to get another 500 seniority numbers? Some would say yes while others would say no.

Anyway, it is all over now except for the lawsuit to wind its way through the court system. Should be fun to see how it plays out.

If you're claiming the 71's going away as an excuse for your failure, why didn't you speak up when RM from WN mgmt was tounting the 71 staying for the full duration of thier leases during roadshows to promote SLI2? If you knew they were going away early, wouldn't it have been prudent to share that rumor as it was for all the other crap you guys spewed?

 

[SWA/FO]

except for the lawsuit to wind its way through the court system

What lawsuit? Where can I find it?

 

[Kharma Police]

If you'd read some of my previous posts about that individual, you would know that he's certainly not one of my "heroes." He was hired by Pinnacle management years ago to help them bargain against us. He's nothing more than a hired gun with no morals or ethics.

What I find incredibly ironic, though, is that SWA hired the very same guy who, when he was ALPA President, stated openly that it was one of his goals to kill the low cost carriers.

Ha! Ha! A former ALPA officer screwing over "fellow" airline pilots by joining management? Sounds about right. I guess you people will do anything to keep from flying an airplane....

 

[humveedriver]

What lawsuit? Where can I find it?

I'm only aware of this one

http://ia700806.us.archive.org/25/items/gov.uscourts.gand.181455/gov.uscourts.gand.181455.1.0.pdf

 

[humveedriver]

Someone asked about SWA/AT pilots relations. I'll bet anyone a cold shiner, that they are better than some of the AT/AT pilot relations or SWA/SWA pilot relations. Mergers seem to bring out the worst.