[quote]To answer your question though, sir, it all depends on your perspective. One could easily argue both sides. For starters you still have your pension. As a matter of fact AA is the only Passenger airline with a pension still intact and considering you have no idea what it's like to enter Bankruptcy, since AA has never been there, I will tell you that your pension would have disappeared.[quote]

Another deft analysis. Yes, we all know that if management is successful in taking the company intentionally into bankruptcy, pensions go away, although the AA pilots pension was split into A and B a long time ago, so the damage would be bad but nowhere near as bad as has happened to Delta, US Airways, etc. I will tell you that if Donald Carty had been successful in his Lorenzo/Siegal etc tactic and won concessions then taken AA to bankruptcy and then shed pensions, I would have quit AA and I cannot understand why a pilot at Delta or US Airways under the age of 50 is still there. Did these pilot unions not see that coming and why did they not stand up to management?

What good is an airline to an airline pilot if he or she works twice as much for half the pay and no pension? Might as well switch careers, work local and be home every night; most pilots have the ability to do this. Yes, I know, the ego would suffer, and that is enough for some. "I fly jets."

You still don't get it. I'm not claiming AA pilots have a great track record themselves; it is actually one of the worst as far as collapse. But, it started somewhere and the 1985-2000 TWA history of concession with management payoffs to union facilitators has taken hold at APA.
This is not helped by the addition of TWA. TWA pilots have a history of concession; they truly think that negotiations mean "how much do we have to give up to get a small raise?" Because they are experienced in giving it away, they are handy for the concessionary leaders of APA, like Ralph Hunter, James Sovich and others mentioned above. The few who are on property are then placed in disproportionate number onto key committees.

Prime example: 2/5s of the negotiating committee is former TWA. I'm sure they are expecting a management job payoff like the 1997 committee after they hand over Preferential Bidding and other value.

I hope so, but part of the reason I brought this up is because we have very "TWA-like" pilots in charge at APA right now. They will lead us into another concessionary contract; not six months ago, they were touring the country in a Road Show they called the Performance Leadership Initiative which was orchestrated with management with data obtained almost exclusively from the Airline Conference (management group). The disease incubated by TWA from 1985 - 2000 has taken hold at AA. So, no, do not expect the APA leadership pilots to do anything but drive fear, uncertainty and doubt into the minds of their membership and drive them into idiotic giveaways like Preferential Bidding and other long-desired management wishes.

So, ONE MORE TIME: anyone, please, give me an example where concession has enhanced the profession.

Jetblaster