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SWAPA calls all former AirTran pilots

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This has become so interesting. How this has evolved into so much bad information being thrown around by people who "say" they are in the know.

Airtran pilots arguing what their rights are vs Southwest pilots trying to hang on to what they have while wanting a reasonable gain because of the Airtran pilots natural gains from the Swapa contract.

As much inaccurate information that has been shared there are only the facts that an arbitrator will be interested.

1) This is an aquisition
2) The Airtran pilots will naturally experience a large gain in Pay, QOL and benefits.
3) The SWA pilots will experience a zero natural gain.
4) Potential growth means NOTHING to an arbitrator.
5) An arbitrator will NOT give a 6 year Airtran Captain a seat that a 9 year FO does not have.
6) There will NOT be a staple of the entire Airtran list on the bottom of the SWA list.
7) Career expectations and, fair and equitable will be the only areas considered by an arbitrator.

SWAPA is using who is considered by far the best law firm for these types of integration situations. Airtran has the third. Guess who has number two on retainer?
The difference between the best and second best is huge. The difference between the second and third even more.

I know that some do not like what I am saying but it is the truth. Airtran pilots are better off negotiating in good faith and coming to an agreement with SWAPA instead of going to arbitration. Swapa appears to have a very competent, experienced team taking care of their interests. With the attorneys they have any betting man puts their money that the SWA pilots will also be experiencing gains as they reasonably should.

Do not under estimate the power of family with SWA. If there seems to be a real concern for the health of their culture, no matter who has quoted what, SWA is well positioned with a number of legal options to ascertain their culture stays in place.

It is automatic that the Airtran pilots have career gains. Not at all for the SWA pilots. Fair and equitable is where if there is a gain or loss from one group, the other must experience the same.

As long as cooler heads prevail (obviously not here on FI) both sides should be moderately satisfied with the final result of the integration by SWAPA and ALPA. If this goes to arbitration, largely it will shift more favorably for the SWA pilots.

Best of luck to all of you.
 
Dicko, it's not propaganda. My buddy at swa got the same interview sent via swapa email yesterday. GK isn't just buying you guys with his eyes closed hoping the swa employees "get over whatever happens in time". He will protect his company and hope that you guys appreciate this opportunity. Don't look the gifthorse in the mouth for too long. Believe me, swapa would welcome arbitration. Be careful what you wish for.
 
Lear,

How can they be autonomous with ALPA leadership at the meetings?

autonomy - immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence

If MEC members are in the room providing "thoughts and input" your MC is not autonomous.

There are a few misunderstandings here, I think. First, the MC is not really autonomous. The MC still reports to the MEC, and they still work for the MEC. The MEC just doesn't get involved in developing strategy or working on the details of SLI. The MEC still has the power of oversight. Nothing in policy says anything different. However, the ATN MEC has made the decision to not get involved in the details of SLI, including strategy, bargaining positions, or arbitration, should it come to that.

As far as MEC members being "at the meetings," there haven't even been any SLI meetings. All meetings so far have just dealt with the Process Agreement and transition discussions. That's not SLI. Once the SLI negotiations start, you won't see a member of the governing body anywhere. It will be all MC, all the time. That's their job, not the MEC's. But we aren't there yet.
 
PCL,

As an MEC officer, why do you come to this board? If I were an AirTran - ALPA member, I would not like the idea of my union leadership going to an "anonymous" message board and commenting....at all. There is more important things, I could imagine, for my leadership to be involved.
 
There are a few misunderstandings here, I think. First, the MC is not really autonomous. The MC still reports to the MEC, and they still work for the MEC. The MEC just doesn't get involved in developing strategy or working on the details of SLI. The MEC still has the power of oversight. Nothing in policy says anything different.
Didn't infer that they didn't. Of course the MEC has the ability to change their stance on how the MC is currently organized and managed but, IMHO, to do so would be the equivalent of political suicide in our current internal environment.

However, the ATN MEC has made the decision to not get involved in the details of SLI, including strategy, bargaining positions, or arbitration, should it come to that.
That's what I meant by "autonomous". With the MEC not involved in any of that, the MC is pretty much free to go whatever direction they decide. Still trying to figure out from the policy manual if the MEC will get "veto" authority over any agreement that may be reached by the MC before it goes out for MemRat...
 
Airtran guys; if you want relative seniority despite any facts that may be laid out against that proposition, just make sure you get arbitrator Dana Eischen. He just disregarded all facts, including his own rationale, in the whole F9-YX-L4-RAH debacle and gave all the commuter pilots a giant windfall. Southwest guys; do just the opposite if you want to keep what you've earned. And whatever you do, make sure you go with a 3 arbitrator panel, so that your fate is not tied to one senile and insane old man.
 
Airtran guys; if you want relative seniority despite any facts that may be laid out against that proposition, just make sure you get arbitrator Dana Eischen. He just disregarded all facts, including his own rationale, in the whole F9-YX-L4-RAH debacle and gave all the commuter pilots a giant windfall. Southwest guys; do just the opposite if you want to keep what you've earned. And whatever you do, make sure you go with a 3 arbitrator panel, so that your fate is not tied to one senile and insane old man.

3 Arbitratror panel already installed.
 
in all honesty, when somebody takes a ridiculous position in barganing, we sometimes make a ridiculous proposal in the other direction. To kinda balance out expectations.

In the end, there will be compromise.

I think DOH would be workable, if ATL has a long fence. Of the 400 ,or so, Airtran guys who would face being bumped to F/O, maybe split the difference and down-grade
200, and press on.

Of course, I thought DOH would have worked in the USAir case if there were
fences to protect everyones seat and domicile.
 
kwick I respect your right to try to come up with a solution from your side of the things. But here is how I see it. There is a big circular room, with dozens of windows viewing all the pieces of the SWA and Aitran parts. Everything, crews, airplanes, gates, tugs, maintenance, tickets, markets, human resources, etc. All these pieces are in the room and all the parties are looking in through their window, and no one can start fitting these pieces together yet. We are both just looking through the window and not able to do anything about the pieces that we see inside.

I spoke with a SWA instructor and maintenance team guy on the jump seat the other day headed to SEA. First, two airplanes that were going to Airtran are being delivered to SWA and have to be reconfigured, galley, avionics, etc... Secondly the instructor said there were teams of 150 and 200 working on all the little details, trying to figure this thing out. So the game of trying to split the differences is really irrelevant. Cheers
 
Airtran guys; if you want relative seniority despite any facts that may be laid out against that proposition, just make sure you get arbitrator Dana Eischen. He just disregarded all facts, including his own rationale, in the whole F9-YX-L4-RAH debacle and gave all the commuter pilots a giant windfall. Southwest guys; do just the opposite if you want to keep what you've earned. And whatever you do, make sure you go with a 3 arbitrator panel, so that your fate is not tied to one senile and insane old man.[/QUOTE

Citrus vato's.......if you want relative seniority.......you are going to be inside the RJ corral for a long time. If you guys are happy making RJ wages while you wait for the ALPA job killing machine to burn the SWAPA house down like they have burned the rest of the industry down I can tell you it will be a long wait.

Guadalupe holdings can keep you there forever or off the whole bunch of you guys along with the RJ's when they get tired of you guys crying about not being able to steal our left seats.

Take the money take all the rest of the great deals you guys have already got from this deal and get happy.

We can do this the easy way and all get along and prosper or we can do it the hard way and we all end up like the America West US Air tools. ALPA did a great job there didn't they, they fought, fought and kept on fighting until the whole deal was not worth doing. That is coming in this situation if we are not careful. The ALPA job killing machine never misses an opportunity to miss and opportunity.

I hope SWA can pull this off otherwise we will be infected with a virus that will make working here just as miserable as the other airlines.

We must fight this one like we have never fought before the ALPA job killing machine is coming and must be stopped.

Cheers vato's
 
What's with the "Vato" thing?

It goes without saying that there's not a single one of us who believes you are Latin in any way. Vatos (the plural of vato) doesn't have an apostrophe, mate, and the placement of the rest of your syntax is too precise in your post history to believe that's an accidental typo.

Just wondering... ;)
 
Kwick, you make it sound like DOH with long fences would be "acceptable" to the aai pilots. You guys wouldn't be able to hold in your laughter. A AA or AAA baseball player just got drafted to the big leagues, and he's walking in there saying "yeah, I think I'll take Jeter's contract and I kinda like that short stop position". Get real.
 
What's with the "Vato" thing?

It goes without saying that there's not a single one of us who believes you are Latin in any way. Vatos (the plural of vato) doesn't have an apostrophe, mate, and the placement of the rest of your syntax is too precise in your post history to believe that's an accidental typo.

Just wondering... ;)

He is one of are mafia members down in LRD.LOL. By the way still no response on my PM.
 

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