Originally Posted by
Rolf
Tsquare,
I don't know why I bother, but really? You cannot fathom why a straight relative seniority would hurt SWAPA pilots? Maybe if you looked at the expected seniority progression of an older guy if you put a bunch of young guys in front of him, you would get some of the angst. Maybe you just want a nice civil war here at SWA. That would make both Airtran and SWA go away, but you would miss us too much so that can't be it either.....hmmmmm
This argument is made in a vacuum. Do you not realize that ATI brings airplanes to this merger? So instead of having 500 airplanes, you will then have 700. (or whatever the numbers are) Your progression theoretically should remain the same. So I still don't get the angst. Except.... that you probably realize that in ANY merger, 1+1 does not = 2. THAT I understand. So SWA captains will lose nothing. ATI captains SHOULD lose nothing. TheSWA guys might find that they can not hold their first choice of vacation, but other than that, they lose NOTHING. It is the SWA FOs that are under a misguided perception that past performance equals future expectations, and their target of their anger in the realization is aimed squarely at the other guys. What you are conveniently omitting in your argument is that they have a right to breathe too, and the "justification" that they are getting a pay raise is a "windfall" is lame at best. They didn't aske for the merger any more than you did, and because it IS a reality, doesn't make it right for you to dump all over them and relegate them to slinging gear for you just because your premerger payrates happened to be higher. That is really pathetic on your part. I sincerely hope it doesn't translate into the cockpit, because that would truly be sad. Just keep in mind, a 737 is a 737 is a 737.... THAT is your career expectation.
Fire away, I'll hang up and smile.