United/ USAir Code share

[sideshow]

Can someone please explain how growth will be possible at United if the code share agreement has passed? Why would the company increase flying and bring back pilots if they can just throw passengers on USAir's empty airplanes?

Can someone shed some light?

 

[flyinhard]

US Airways EMPTY planes??? Have you been on U lately? Think back to Continental, they were a bankrupt airline, started Code sharing with Northwest, now look at them...

 

[rightrudder]

Don't forget that a code share agreement is a two-way street, UAL will be putting USAir pax on their planes as well.

RR

 

[KC-10 Driver]

I've been non-revving on USAirways a lot lately -- both domestically and trans-Atlantic. The airplanes are far from empty. It is hard to get on most flights.

 

[Boz]

LETTER OF AGREEMENT

between

UAL CORPORATION,

UNITED AIR LINES, INC.

and

THE AIR LINE PILOTS

in the service of

UNITED AIR LINES, INC.

as represented by

THE AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL



THIS LETTER OF AGREEMENT is made and entered into in accordance with the Railway Labor Act by and between UAL CORPORATION (“UAL”), UNITED AIR LINES, INC. (hereinafter referred to as the “Company”) and the AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL (hereinafter referred to as “ALPA” or the “Association”).



WHEREAS the Company has advised the Association of its desire to enter into a code share and marketing relationship with US Airways, Inc. (“US Airways”) and US Airways express carriers (including without limitation the carriers listed on Schedule 1 to this Letter of Agreement) (“USX Carriers”) that operate under the US Airways designator code (the “US Code”), or successors to US Airways or USX Carriers, each pursuant to the terms of the commercial agreements between the Company and US Airways listed in Schedule 2 to this Letter of Agreement and future agreements between the Company and USX Carriers (collectively, the “Code Share Agreements”);



THEREFORE the parties to this Letter of Agreement hereby agree as follows:



1. Enabling Agreement. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the 2000 collective bargaining agreement between the Company and the Association (the “Pilot Agreement”), the Company may permit US Airways and USX Carriers to conduct commercial flight operations under the Company’s designator code (the “UA Code”) pursuant to the Code Share Agreements only to the extent expressly permitted under this Letter of Agreement. Except for the code sharing pursuant to the Code Share Agreements expressly permitted under this Letter of Agreement, all provisions of Section 1 of the Pilot Agreement shall remain in full force and effect.



2. System Flying. The Company shall measure and report the total number of mainline available seat miles (“ASMs”) scheduled to be operated by US Airways each month under the UA Code. The Company shall not permit the number of mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways under the UA Code to exceed 41% of the mainline ASMs operated by the Company in any rolling twelve-month period.



3. Domestic Flying.



a. The Company may permit US Airways to operate domestic, mainline flights under the UA Code other than point-to-point flights between (i) any of IAD, ORD, DEN, SFO or LAX and (ii) any of the Company’s Key Cities or Gateway Cities as defined in Section 1-M of the Pilot Agreement (currently IAD, ORD, DEN, SFO, LAX, MIA, LGA, EWR, JFK, DCA, BOS and SEA).



b. The Company shall measure and report the total number of ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways and USX Carriers each month under the UA Code between (i) any of PIT, PHL or CLT and (ii) any of the Company’s Key Cities or Gateway Cities. The Company shall not permit the aggregate number of mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by the Company on such routes to fall below 16.85% of the aggregate number of ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways and the USX Carriers under the UA Code on such routes in any rolling twelve-month period.



4. International Flying.



a. The Company shall only permit US Airways or the USX Carriers to operate the following international flights under the UA Code:



i. any flights that begin or end in PIT, PHL or CLT; and



ii. any flights on Latin American Routes (i.e., routes to or from the continental United States and any of Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean Islands (including the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico)) that begin or end in BOS, DCA or LGA and any USX Carrier flights on Latin American Routes that begin or end in MIA.



b. The Company shall measure and report the total number of mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways under the UA Code each month on Transatlantic Routes (i.e., routes between North America and Europe). The Company shall not permit the number of mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways under the UA Code on Transatlantic Routes to exceed 42% of the mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by the Company on Transatlantic Routes in any rolling twelve-month period.



c. The Company shall measure and report the total number of mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways under the UA Code each month on Latin American and Transatlantic Routes. The Company shall not permit the number of mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by US Airways under the UA Code on Latin American Routes to exceed 12.97% of the mainline ASMs scheduled to be operated by the Company on Latin American and Transatlantic Routes in any rolling twelve-month period.



5. USX Flying.



a. The Company shall only permit the UA Code to be used on the following USX Carrier flights:



i. any flights to or from PIT, PHL or CLT provided that (x) no such flights shall stop at DEN, LAX or SFO and any such flights that stop at ORD or IAD shall be point-to-point flights from PIT, PHL or CLT and shall not be operated on jet aircraft with a maximum certificated seating capacity in excess of 50 seats;



ii. flights to or from BOS or MIA provided that such flights may not be operated on jet aircraft with a maximum certificated seating capacity in excess of 50 seats, at least 90% of such flights may not exceed 850 nautical miles, and none of such flights stop at IAD, ORD, DEN, SFO or LAX;



iii. flights to or from LGA, EWR and JFK (collectively, “NYC”) provided that (x) such flights may not be operated on jet aircraft operated with a maximum certificated seating capacity in excess of 50 seats, at least 90% of such flights may not exceed 850 nautical miles, and no such flights stop at IAD, ORD, DEN, SFO or LAX, and the Company shall not permit the number of ASMs operated by US Airways and USX Carriers to or from NYC under the UA Code to exceed 28.1% of the ASMs operated by the Company to or from NYC; and



iv. flights to or from DCA and BWI provided that (x) such flights may not be operated on jet aircraft operated with a maximum certificated seating capacity in excess of 50 seats, at least 90% of such flights may not exceed 850 nautical miles, and no such flights stop at IAD, ORD, DEN, SFO or LAX, and the Company shall not permit the number of ASMs operated by US Airways and USX Carriers to or from IAD, DCA and BWI (collectively “WAS”) under the UA Code to exceed 21.1% of the ASMs operated by the Company to or from WAS.



b. The Company shall hold each USX Carrier that operates flights under the UA Code to the same safety, operational performance and passenger service standards imposed on United Express carriers (including the annual safety audits of such USX Carriers performed by the Company).



6. Reciprocal Code Share Arrangements.



a. The Company shall make commercially reasonable efforts to place the US Code on all of the ASMs operated by the Company within twelve (12) months of the effective date of this Letter of Agreement (the “Phase-In Period”), except to the extent the Company (i) fails to receive required government approval for code sharing on flights despite its best and continuing efforts to obtain such approval; or (ii) is prohibited by the collective bargaining agreement(s) between the Company, US Airways and/or USX Carriers and any of their unions in effect as of the effective date of this Letter of Agreement and (iii) the airport facility, airport authority, or other physical restrictions on airport locations make such implementation impossible or unreasonably expensive in relation to the benefit of the code share at such location.



b. If, after the conclusion of the Phase-In Period, the Company fails to place the US Code on 100% (minus the exclusions provided for in paragraph 6.a above) of the Company ASMs, in any scheduling month, then, for the next scheduling month, the Company shall limit the number of US Airways ASMs operated with the UA Code to a percentage of US Airways ASMs calculated as 105% minus [100% *(A-B) / A], where A is the number of UA ASMs that should have been operated under the US Code and B is the number of UA ASMs actually operated under the US Code. For example, if the Company was required to operate 16 billion ASMs under the US Code in a given month but only operated 14 billion under the US Code during the month, the Company would be required to limit the UA Code to 92.5% of US Airways ASMs –[105% minus (100%*(16-14)/16]. For the purposes of all calculations in this paragraph, all ASMs for both carriers will be net of exclusions in paragraph 6.a. above.



7. Block Space Arrangements. The Company shall be prohibited from entering into any block space arrangements (i.e., the advance purchase or reservation of blocks of seats on other carriers for resale by the Company) with US Airways or any USX Carrier.

 

[Boz]

continued.............

8. Pro Rate Arrangements. The Company shall not engage in any form of revenue sharing, profit sharing, margin sharing, or fee-for-departure arrangements with US Airways or USX Carriers for passengers carried on US Airways or USX Carrier flights other than the form of standard interline remuneration arrangements described in the Code Share Agreements in Schedule 2 to this Letter of Agreement. In addition, without the prior written consent of the Association, the Company shall not adopt any amendment or revision to the Code Share Agreements or any other agreement with US Airways that materially changes the proration of interline revenue between the Company and US Airways under the Code Share Agreements in a way that provides economic benefits to the Company from passengers carried on flights operated by US Airways or USX Carriers under the UA Code.



9. Equity Arrangements. The Company and its Affiliates (as defined in Section 1-M of the Pilot Agreement) shall be prohibited from purchasing or acquiring any equity securities, debt securities or other capital securities of US Airways or any Affiliate of US Airways (other than the receipt of securities of US Airways or any Affiliate of US Airways in settlement of bona fide bankruptcy claims (excluding any purchased claims) of the Company or any Affiliate of the Company).



10. Separate Marketing Identity; Transactions. The Company may conduct joint marketing efforts with US Airways and USX Carriers in support of the Code Share Agreements (including the use of trade names, promotional materials, logos and marks that reflect the code share) but the Company shall nonetheless maintain a primary, separate operating, corporate and marketing identity (including an independent name, trade name, logo, aircraft livery, trademark, livery and service marks). Neither the Company nor any Company Affiliate shall transfer any of the Company’s aircraft (owned, lease or under option), international routes, or international route authorities to US Airways or any Affiliate of US Airways.



11. Labor Disputes. The Company shall not permit US Airways or any USX Carrier to operate any flight under the UA Code at any time during a lawful strike by the Company’s pilots. The Company shall not operate any flight under the US Code during a lawful strike by the pilots of US Airways.



12. Domicile Protection. The Company agrees that it will maintain a pilot Domicile as defined in Section 2-P of the Pilot Agreement (i.e., one or more Equipment Domiciles as defined in Section 2-W of the Pilot Agreement) at each of ORD, SFO, SEA, JFK, MIA, IAD, HNL, LAX and DEN through the later of (i) January 1, 2005 or (ii) the day before the amendable date of the Pilot Agreement (as such amendable date may be revised by Letter of Agreement 02-__ (Economic Recovery Plan)).



13. Information Sharing. The Company shall provide monthly information concerning the Code Share Agreements to the Related Carrier Review Committee under the terms and conditions described in Section 1-K of the Pilot Agreement.



14. Dispute Resolution. Disputes under this Letter of Agreement shall be resolved in accordance with Section 1-L of the Pilot Agreement; provided that Company shall be permitted to cure, and shall cure, a breach of Paragraphs 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this Letter of Agreement on the earlier of (i) 30 days after such breach or (ii) the next published schedule change in the Official Airline Guide for which the Company has not yet transmitted its schedule to the OAG.



15. Duration. This Letter of Agreement shall become effective upon its execution and shall run concurrently with the Pilot Agreement as described in Section 22.D of the Pilot Agreement (as Section 22.D is itself amended by Letter of Agreement 02-__ (Economic Recovery Plan)); provided, however, that



a. Paragraph 11 of this Letter Agreement (Labor Disputes) shall remain in full force and effect unless and until revised in a future written agreement between the Company and the Association irrespective of whether the Company’s pilots are engaged in a lawful primary strike under the Railway Labor Act, and the Company hereby waives any claim, right or privilege to change, breach or disregard paragraph 11 under the Railway Labor Act or otherwise; and



b. Paragraph 12 shall become null and void on the date set forth in paragraph 12 regardless of whether the parties are then engaged in collective bargaining under the Railway Labor Act, and the Association hereby waives any claim that paragraph 12 remains in effect after such date set forth under the status quo provisions of the Railway Labor Act or otherwise.



Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Company may elect to terminate this Letter of Agreement if (i) the Company decides to no longer apply the UA Code to flights operated by US Airways and USX Carriers, or (ii) the Code Share Agreements are terminated. If this Letter of Agreement is terminated pursuant to this paragraph, it shall become null and void and shall no longer run concurrently with the Pilot Agreement.



IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have signed this Letter of Agreement this __ day of _________, 2002.

 

[reepicheep]

Get ready for the 'ol whipsaw....you UAL pilots now have 4500 B-scale pilots in your system. For our part at US Airways, the ceo is talking of getting rid of widebodies; he tells the WSJ that because of codesharing "we don't need to own the metal".