The Arbitration

[Dogwood]

Regardless of the backpack wearing junior AWA FO's rants, it's wrong to staple 1800 pilots to the bottom of the list. The fences should have been longer and the furloughees should have been slotted in.

Agreed. The east furloughees should have been slotted in, with protections for the west so as not to harm their expected upgrade progression either.

There was a much better way to do this, that would have kept both sides fairly content.

 

[BigMotorToter]

Never before in seniority integrations have two lists at such opposite ends of the spectrum been placed together with such puny, ineffective fences.

A350

Actually all you have to do is go back to 2001 and get educated about the TWA/AA seniority integration, and you will see that is has happened before. Our 1988 hires, All Captains, some on the 767 were stapled below probationary new hires.

We tried to appeal to ALPA National. We even traveled to Herndon and gave a power point presentation on what 1113 bankruptcy's were and how it was being used to ramrod a one sided seniority integration against us.

Maybe if the LEC reps. of each airline were looking out for the collective good of ALL ALPA pilots, instead of Delta plus a dollar, you would not be in this situation.

From one who has been there, I truly feel your pain. Good luck.

 

[vtwo]

Expectations?????????????

and yes, above awa junior FO's. What was there career expection going to be in an almost certain AWA bankruptcy without the merger?

What were the Pan Am career expectations, Braniff, Eastern, ect...
Vangaurd, Access air, Twa, American airlines, bla bla bla.

It's not fair I was expecting my first wife to follow through with our planed expectations, before she changed her plans, I was expecting my airline to give me a pension and health care after 60.

Don't expect things and then your feelings won't be hurt.
Now get back to work, your just an employee.

 

[BigMotorToter]

Aren't mergers also part of "career expectations".

 

[vtwo]

Aren't mergers also part of "career expectations".

Absolutely, also you should expect to be blindsided a couple of times.

Medical issues, Bankruptcy's, Scabs trying to undermine what you are fighting for, Management to LIE's to you.

Maintenance pencil whipping, Feds Changing their interpretation.Are the any More that I left out?

 

[A350]

Vtwo:

Your claim about my reasonable expectation has merit....but all I see from the West is arguements about this very thing and how this "preserves" their expectations......

Further, the assertions that AWA or AAA would have entered BK or liquidated without the merger are just assumptions that noone can validate with any degree of certainty. Just because Parker says it doesn't make it so. I have no doubt that if a deal with AWA wasn't done, AWA or AAA would have merged with different partners. The guy running AAA at the time was a money guy, not necessarily an airline guy. Parker has made it no secret he wants to merge, so his MO is the same as it is now. Of course this is just speculation, just like the liquidation of U and the BK of AWA. Further, if no deal is done and U did liquidate and AWA entered BK, I can only assume that save Dave would have been looking for work with all the U pilots....so that is what assumptions will get you.

As far as being blindsided, I think the AAA guys have been blindsided more than a few times.

The TWA/AMR deal was similar to this staple job, however the TWA pilots were unfortunately dealing with a different union. This was ALPA/ALPA. Not fair by any means, but different.

A350

 

[PHXFLYR]

USAir guys just don't get it. Never have.Never will.


PHXFLYR

 

[iflyhigh]

A350:

Just a question??

How done the list due you want to protect your guys on the East?????

A 1989 guy hired at US Air spent most of the 90's on furlough and was refurloughed in 2001 or 2002??? How much time in service???

Believe I have been furloughed from a Major, and I know what its like to have career expectations destroyed. Crap, I should be flying the 757/767 right now for UAL, but my career was put on hold for the same reasons US Air pilots were, BK.

I since have moved on and no its just part of the business. Take the emotion out of it and look at the picture. How far down the list does US Air guys get protected??

Plus how many pilots active are retiring, how many off of furlough, and the big questions how many captains in the next few years? If a majority of your retirements are not captain slots?? The captain slots are the main issue, because that brings upward mobility.

I know at UAL, 99% of the retirements are from captain seats.

Believe I am not trying to pick a fight, not looking at the picture from the outside and trying to understand..

 

[fr8doggie]

Thanks DW.

One more question. Were there any active pilots that were not furloughed from the late 80's that were placed behind west pilots?

Ed

A buddy of mine who was hired by Piedmont in July of 1987 (never furloughed) was placed behind a HP 2003 hire.

That kind of blows, I think.

 

[Green]

I wish everyone who thinks AAA got a raw deal could spend 10 minutes looking at the Us Airways proposed list. It basically stapled all of AWA behind virtually every AAA pilot. ?? I don't know what some of you guys are smoking but nobody wanted a piece of Us Airways in 2005. The airline was all but done and any likely deals would have involved buying chunks of AAA as nobody wanted the whole thing. You guys were radioactive and virtually every analyst and writer thought AWA had made the mistake of the decade picking up Us Airways. Before you trash the Nicalau award I suggest you read it first. I don't think he could have done a better job crafting a fair award.

A350

Reasonable expectations are hard to bank on in the airline industry. All those senior AWA captains that you wanted to staple below Furloughed AAA pilots were expecting to retire as 747 captains flying to Japan. So correct me if I'm wrong but AWA flew bigger airplanes than anything AAA ever had. You'll likely point out that we had a tiny fleet but I would counter that AAA's coveted 330's represent 3% of the fleet. Not a very impressive number.

Finally if we had been stapled in this deal we would have bitch#d and moaned but I guarantee we would have shown a lot more class than the AAA pilots who are threatening to throw some 40k jobs down the toilet because you didn't get your wish list. Pretty childish...I fail to see the earth shattering raw deal you supposedly got. Your top 500 pilots moved up on a percentage basis and every other active pilot stayed in basically the same relative spot. You aren't going to be able to make up years of furlough on the backs of AWA pilots, but that's not how Alpa merger policy works.

 

[becket]

Regardless of the backpack wearing junior AWA FO's rants, it's wrong to staple 1800 pilots to the bottom of the list. The fences should have been longer and the furloughees should have been slotted in.

slot in unemployed pilots? are you crazy. What can you really expect from a company whom you only worked for for two years and have been furloughed for almost six? time to move on.

 

[A350]

iflyhi:

I was hired in 89 and never furloughed until 2003. As I said, smarter guys than me are going to have to figure this out....so I don't have an answer to your question other than to say as it is written now, it disadvantages the AAA pilots for the duration of their careers.

The fact that you have FO's retiring still provides upward mobility....and puts you closer to the upgrade. You still will get the upgrade, and if it takes a year or two longer, you still get it. The way it stands now, I lose the widebody position and never recover it. And many NEVER upgrade even though absent this list, they would have finished out their careers on a high note.

Green:

The staple you say that would have happened had the AAA proposal gone through would not be a "staple" if there were conditions and restrictions placed on bidding going forward.....this is a staple for the east furloughees and there are NO restrictions. The 4 year fence is a farce. Further with age 65 coming, there is no fence at all.

Looking at my situation, is it reasonable to end up 780 numbers down the list at retirement and to lose things that were in my expectation forever, not just a delay?

Further, your comment about the AWA guys flying 747's......when did you get rid of them? That means anyone hired after that had no expectation of flying anything like that. And your assertion about that weakens your claim that a U guy had no expectations because of what MIGHT have happened.

A350

 

[iflyhigh]

A350:

You know that you can't save every pilot, next to impossible. I also don't advocate selling out the juniors guys either.

So why did your MEC not try to find something other than years of service? When I was furloughed from UAL, I was told, if a merger or buyout happens, and you are not on property you have no rights. The pilot group would try and protect you, but you are not here and don't have a say.

Why did they MEC not try and protect those furloughes, and unforunately, let the late 90's guys go......At least the senior guys, in the last 10 or less years of their career, (possible five more years now) on furlough would have been protected....

I know the this solution would of stank for the late 90's guys, but like I said, can't protect every guy not on the property.

Your MEC had to figure that the Arbitrator was not going to put 20 year fences in, like Republic got. That has turned out to be a mess.

Again, how far down the list do you want to protect, everyone??????

 

[Green]

A350:

You know that you can't save every pilot, next to impossible. I also don't advocate selling out the juniors guys either.

So why did your MEC not try to find something other than years of service? When I was furloughed from UAL, I was told, if a merger or buyout happens, and you are not on property you have no rights. The pilot group would try and protect you, but you are not here and don't have a say.


Your MEC had to figure that the Arbitrator was not going to put 20 year fences in, like Republic got. That has turned out to be a mess.

Again, how far down the list do you want to protect, everyone??????

Of course they did...The bottom line for AAA was to put several hundred Furloughed pilots senior to the MAJORITY of AWA captains, with conditions and restrictions that were all but a joke. That just goes to show how unreasonable the AAA expectations were. Now they fully expect Alpa National to throw aside the Constitution and by Laws and abrogate the award.

Regardless of how anybody feels about the award can you possibly imagine what throwing it out would do to Alpa National? If Prater makes a precendent of ignoring our union's constitution by throwing out a year of arbitration hearings and the resulting Binding Arbitration where does that leave us as a union? Will any future seniority arbitration ever stick if all you have to do is make a huge stink and picket national? What happens if they throw it out and the next arbitrator doesn't appreciate Prater's arrogance and gives AAA a worse deal? We would be going down a slippery path into the unknown. Seems crazy to risk our entire union to appease a group of PHL radicals.

 

[JT8D]

This merger (as expected) will NEVER WORK. Most of them don't and this one is worse than most.

If you know chemistry you know that oil and water will not solve with each other...you can stir... backward, forward, faster...doesn't make a difference...the two substances are so diametrically opposite to each other that they will not blend...not even a little bit for a short time...

Lots of people had raised eyebrows when this "merger" was made public. Most in the know said "WHAT?...How is that ever going to work?...It was sort of like billy bobs dime store buying KMART with billy bob saying "don't you folks worry none...everythangs gonna be alright... I runs my own store."

 

[Wiskey Driver]

I have a question for the AAA pilots out there. That means the AAA pilots: not Whiskey, HP, + rate, TWA dude, Grog or
Ed

Ed, can I post yet???:laugh:

 

[Fast43]

and yes, above awa junior FO's. What was there career expection going to be in an almost certain AWA bankruptcy without the merger?

Maybe you could Illuminate for us exactly what your career expectations at AAA were without this merger.

Our rumored "looming banckruptcy" does not carry the carreer ending promise that Liquidation does.

Liquidation.............could this be the Massive Attrition AAA guys are talking about??

 

[Fast43]

A350
The 4 year fence is a farce. Further with age 65 coming, there is no fence at all.


"Kinda Wrecks your rapid attrition claim as well"


A350
Looking at my situation, is it reasonable to end up 780 numbers down the list at retirement and to lose things that were in my expectation forever, not just a delay?



"Snap out of it...You weren't going to ever see them anyway, without the merger you would have had Liquidation. Ending up 780 numbers farther down the list at retirement seems like a decent alternative" However that is looking at it in a positive way, why is it you east guys can't see the positive side of still having a job in a career that a whole Flippin lot of people would love to have.

I guess its hard to see that when your doing overtime counting all the things you feel were owed and lost or should have had etc. You guys could prolly write a good country song.

 

[737 Pylt]

Ed, can I post yet???:laugh:

NO! You should be on the corner of 44th st. now going about your "handyman business!":laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Heard you and hpilot were getting a "float" ready for the parade!:blush:

737

 

[EdTeachLives!]

Yes Whiskey.....I got my answer for the most part. I am still wondering how the arbitrator put an unfurloughed '87 hire(s) behind a Cactus '03 hire if the facts are right?

I get the part about the furloughed guys and their placement. I don't get the decision on AAA's retirement numbers as it seems they don't capture the attrition they bring evenly.

Ed