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

[FDJ2]

Different.... Airtran would have been damaging to NWA, where Midwest was reasonably small and expensive. Airtran was already in Delta's parking lot destroying yields to any market that would "compete" on. SWA was viewed as a forgone conclusion in ATL by Delta, taking out Airtran in the process actually was probably BETTER for Delta than having SWA war it out with Airtran in ATL.

Airtran had already been reducing frequencies in ATL since shortly after DAL exited BK. The SWA acquisition just increased the rate and amount of that reduction in frequencies.

 

[slaquer5]

SWA/FO, your knowledge of the law leaves much to be desired. In order to avoid the requirement to merge the pilot groups under MB, he would have had to have an acquisition deal with AirTran that included not taking the 717s, which obviously never would have happened, since it wouldn't have made sense to the AirTran shareholders. Once the transaction closed and SWA owned the 717s, he couldn't simply change his mind and decide to not merge operations. That's not how the law is written.

Shareholders only care about ROI

Thats , return on there investment .

 

[redflyer65]

he would have had to have an acquisition deal with AirTran that included not taking the 717s, which obviously never would have happened, since it wouldn't have made sense to the AirTran shareholders.

Airtran shareholders? What?

If the stock is trading at 5 dollars a share, and Southwest comes in and offers $7.50 a share for the buyout, you think the shareholders would care what happened to the 717?

If I were a AAI shareholder when that was announced, I would have just been calculating my profit and not thought anything about were the planes were going.


PS - Slaquer beat me to it

 

[HowardBorden]

SWA/FO, your knowledge of the law leaves much to be desired. In order to avoid the requirement to merge the pilot groups under MB, he would have had to have an acquisition deal with AirTran that included not taking the 717s, which obviously never would have happened, since it wouldn't have made sense to the AirTran shareholders. Once the transaction closed and SWA owned the 717s, he couldn't simply change his mind and decide to not merge operations. That's not how the law is written.

Mccaskill/Bond has a specific definition of a "covered transaction." It states:
The statute applies when two or more air carriers are involved in a "covered transaction," described as:

1. A transaction for the combination of multiple air carriers into a single air carrier; and which
2. Involves the transfer of ownership or control of—
3. 1. 50 percent or more of the equity securities (as defined in section 101 of title 11, United States Code) of an air carrier; or
   2. 50 percent or more (by value) of the assets of the air carrier. 49 U.S.C. § 42112 (b)(4).

It seems you are stating that M/B may actually compel a corporation to in fact combine its assets into a single carrier and not allow a corporation to operate two subsidiaries separately.

If SWA had a desire to operate these two subsidiaries separately are you stating that M/B would have prevented that?

If SWA felt it was in the corporate best interest to divest certain assets that did not fit the business model, are you stating that M/B would prevent that?

If assets were divested are you stating that M/B would compel the corporation to keep employees on the payroll even though the equipment they operated was no longer owned by the corporation?

If SWA decided the day after corporate closing to sell off AirTran are you stating M/B would prevent that transaction?

At the very least it is "unsettled" law because none of it has not been tested in the courts.

Regardless, at this point we will never know what might have happened in this particular case because both parties chose to forgo the arbitration process and arrived at a negotiated settlement as outlined in the process agreement.

 

[PCL_128]

But he could have outright divested them (you) with the jets per the law.

Absolutely. Nothing prevents fragmentation. Of course, then the pilots go with the airplanes.

 

[humveedriver]

Normally this is where I punch out of the conversation. But I never read through much of the M/B stuff. So those are some great questions. Because SWA bought all the shares of AT (even mine!), so that would have triggered the law, even if we operated DC3s and they were all sold to Cuba on 4 May 2011. Then what? Lucy... you got some splaining to do.

 

[PCL_128]

It seems you are stating that M/B may actually compel a corporation to in fact combine its assets into a single carrier and not allow a corporation to operate two subsidiaries separately.

No, not at all. Nothing in the law compels a company to take one course of action or another in a business transaction. But what the law does require, is that once a transaction takes place with the intent of combining the operations, combining the employee groups using the Allegheny-Mohawk LPPs is required. In this case, SWA signed an agreement with AirTran that involved acquiring the entire company, and merging the operations. Once that transaction was final, there was no turning back on the requirements of MB. A day after corporate closing, Gary couldn't have come out and said "never mind, I've changed my mind on this whole merger thing; we're just going to get rid of 2/3 of the fleet and fire those employees." Doesn't work that way. MB was specifically designed to prevent such an action.

If SWA had a desire to operate these two subsidiaries separately are you stating that M/B would have prevented that?

No. The transaction just would have had to have been structured that way, which it was not.

If assets were divested are you stating that M/B would compel the corporation to keep employees on the payroll even though the equipment they operated was no longer owned by the corporation?

MB doesn't speak to how many employees must be kept on the payroll. What it speaks to is a seniority integration process. Nothing stops a company from divesting assets and furloughing accordingly. The furloughs would just have to come from a combined list that was decided using the Allegheny-Mohawk process.

If SWA decided the day after corporate closing to sell off AirTran are you stating M/B would prevent that transaction?

No.

 

[HowardBorden]

No, not at all. Nothing in the law compels a company to take one course of action or another in a business transaction. But what the law does require, is that once a transaction takes place with the intent of combining the operations, combining the employee groups using the Allegheny-Mohawk LPPs is required. In this case, SWA signed an agreement with AirTran that involved acquiring the entire company, and merging the operations. Once that transaction was final, there was no turning back on the requirements of MB. A day after corporate closing, Gary couldn't have come out and said "never mind, I've changed my mind on this whole merger thing; we're just going to get rid of 2/3 of the fleet and fire those employees." Doesn't work that way. MB was specifically designed to prevent such an action.

Please cite the specific language from the amendment which supports this claim.

No. The transaction just would have had to have been structured that way, which it was not.

Again, please back this claim up by citing specific passages from M/B.

MB doesn't speak to how many employees must be kept on the payroll. What it speaks to is a seniority integration process. Nothing stops a company from divesting assets and furloughing accordingly. The furloughs would just have to come from a combined list that was decided using the Allegheny-Mohawk process.

But again, if the assets were never combined into a single transportation system, there is no combined list.

Please respond to the bold insertions.

 

[Full of LUV]

What made SWA a foregone conclusion in ATL? Their political influence with the city? I think building up BNA stand alone had about an equal chance as SWA taking a shot at ATL and AT.

Perhaps, what I meant by foregone conclusion was ATL was just too big of a "dot" for SWA to ignore forever. They may have not tried overrun AT or DAL, but they were bound to set up some shop in ATL eventually, it is a large market in its own right.

 

[flynvixen]

How's it working out over there Captain Work Ethic? Is the company advertising for voluntary leaves? Not much time and half or charters filtering down the seniority list? I don't mind flame bait. But you are just so bad at it. You talk about greed and working hard. But you speak with forked tongue. All you care about is your pay check, and I bet you are going to be the biggest whiner in the crew room when the next contract wipes out your soft time.

Hey humveedriver, you should stick to things that you know like driving humvee's your just another "TED" .......please get some paper out to one of your ALPA airlines so you can burn their house down and not ours,,,,, you malcontents will never be happy no matter where you are masquerading as pilots.........now STFU and give me the before start originating checklist !!

 

[tankerhead]

You are trailer trash.

 

[slaquer5]

Absolutely. Nothing prevents fragmentation. Of course, then the pilots go with the airplanes.

Thats a good one.

That is exactly what ALPA told the Eastern Airline pilots


Good luck with that

 

[Wesb737fo]

TED? Wasn't that the old United low cost unit. What do you mean by TED?

 

[canyonblue]

Little do you guys (PCL and gang) realize, there is a double edged sword here. Because, if Gary was truthful, you know if he had told SWAPA and ALPA what he really wanted to do with your 717s. Then under law there wouldn’t have been any requirement to combine the Pilot group. This would have been a difference of an added 68% of lost seniority or 100% lost in seniority.

This also seems to be a question for many SWA guys, why did we acquire this airline? If we don't want their airplanes or all of their cities they fly to, then why did we acquire them? Was there not one benefit of purchasing AirTran?

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Eliminate competition allowing increased ticket prices. (Many increases in ticket prices recently)

Very quickly able to set up international operations. (quick is a relative term but when you look at SW history of "change" this is going pretty quick).

Immediate access to Atlanta.

This also gave them cover to start a huge undertaking. Overhauling the computer operations. They could always use "the airtran merger" as an excuse for everything that was going wrong or going slowly instead of actually having to admit that their computer system was at the end of its useful life.

Compared to SWA history this last two years is a huge departure from Standard ops. Could they have changed the companies direction so quickly without Airtran? Obviously our management did not think so.

So one of two things is true. Our management is incompetent or Airtran has value above what most SWA employees gives us credit for.