American Merger?
 

With all the talk about a DL/NW merger, a CO/UA merger or SW buying someone there has been little said about American getting involved in merger mania. Just curious if anyone at AMR has heard anything. There is a post going on at airliners.net about an AMR/AS consolidation though I think it is just unfounded speculation. If that doomsday scenario were to happen I know I would end up on the street with American merger history and the fact that they have more pilots on furlough than we have total! :eek:

Smart Shoppers?
 

AMR could be waiting for fire-sale prices on assets when merging companies are forced to divest them. They may not have to merge at all.

We keep hearing AMR/AS. However AS wants to remain independent and AMR would have to make a hostile take over attempt. Believe it or not, it's not something they want to engage in. As far as seniority integration, ALPA's merger policy is now law. APA thinks that it would go to arbitration and follow the template of the USAir--America West integration. In that case the arbitrator didn't "see" the USAir East furloughs, so they got stapled behind the most junior America West guy. If that's the case, you should have about 2000 guys behind you.

The other scenario is that will will try to play spoiler to a NWA--Delta deal, or at least try to make it a more expensive deal. And lastly, when the limits of foreign ownership are lifted, will we either merge with BA, or be bought outright by Emirates.

Of course, tomgoodman's scenario is also a good bet.

Anyone who's company is mentioned in the same breath as AA, should be afraid. Very afraid. AA management has a hideous record of acquiring other companies. The APA knows this and must be rabid about protecting itself. It's not management that suffers when mergers and acquisitions are badly done, it's the APA membership. Even at the time, and especially in retrospect, the APA should have fought the TWA acquisition harder. APA and TWA pilots would be better off now if TWA was allowed to continue towards its own destiny.

Letter of thanks for the debacle can be sent to Don Carty, Gerald Arpey and all the other lemmings in Centerport with the big heads.

God love ya. My sentiments exactly. APA should have done much more. But it's not APA's way to be proactive at anything. APA should be standing outside Arpey's door screaming as loud as they can. The APA president hasn't so much as even met with Arpey, ever.

Meanwhile ALPA's MEC's are or have been in every other airline's board room or CEO's office discussing potential mergers.

Not ours.

We seem to be the red-headed stepchild within ALPA.

it all stems from the Stockholm syndrome we've been carrying around since 1983.

Plausible indeed. Sounds like you've experienced a merger or two.

Interesting. I was told by one our base chairs that APA and CAL ALPA held a strike preparedness meeting together and the power brokers at ALPA national had a cow over it. They didn't like us snooping around their territory...

Actually AMR was brilliant in it's acquistion of TWA. Eliminated a competitor, albeit a small one, cemented a divide and conquer strategy between the 2400 TWA pilots and the 10,000 NAAtive pilots, was able to get a 23% paycut with 2900 pilots on furlough, and able to award their managers over 50 million in bonuses. I'm not even sure the Wharton School of Business can beat this case study.

When you allow a union "carte blanche" to integrate another pilot group (APA carrier vs an ALPA carrier) you will get an extermination of the smaller group. This, IMHO is why AA has not been mentioned AND why Congress has stepped into a Deregulated industry and made regulations.

No one will ever know what would have happened if TWA had selected Boeing (just like Continental) as a bailout suitor or if selling their soul back to Satan-Carl Icahn would have resulted in a different ending to TWA. Don Carty and AMR offered to acquire TWA and preserve jobs. Out of 24,000, only 1,800 were saved, mostly because the NAAtive unions on the property stapled all TWA employees at the bottom of the trash can, and some of them with limited (5yr) recall rights.

But from their arrogant handling of the TWA pilot group it is empirically proven that the APA more than, did the job.

Finally, how did the APA membership suffer, that's one that ranks up there with my favorite quote, "The TWA pilots screwed us NAAtive pilots". Not even my man-diapers stopped what happened after I laughed at this one.

I love to read opinions about TWA, unfortunately many are flawed with slants and non-factual posts....."the APA membership suffered"...haaaaaa, good one. American Airlines furloughes after 9/11 barely went into NAAtives hired 12 months prior to 9/11, research all the other legacy carriers and see how many years their furloughs went...3-7 years.

Unfortunately, on the TWA side furloughes went to pilots hired in 1988/1989.

In summary, don't kid yourself that the APA is anyone's friend and thus the lack of dance partners. The only bright spot is that hopefully with the latest round of mergers, that American will no longer be the big fish and in time some one will buy American and staple their pilots to the bottom. Of course, the TWA pilots will be stapled a second time, but when you times 20 years of service x 0 credit, you still get zero. So the NAAtives will be more hurt by a staple than the TWA pilots.

Would you like to know how we really feel about the APA ???

Just ask,

FF

Fli Fast you are such a LIAR.
Me 93' hire at AA, over 800 TWA's Captains senior to me flying captain.They were never furloughed. God knows how many junior to me flying captain at AA. Most TWA pilots hired after 1986 were ratio'd into AA seniority at 8 to 1.
I do not consider that a staple.

TWA crew Schedulers at AA, I know of several, never furloughed.
TWA dispatchers at AA never furloughed.

While even I don't agree with the way TWA pilots were merged, I have heard enough from you.

Now you hope that AA is bought and totally stapled to the bottom of someones seniority list.

FLI FAST IS A CRYBABY

I cannot listen to your constant crying on every thread that has nothing to do with TWA.

20 years of credit right now gets a left seat for any/all TWA pilots in St Louis.