Originally Posted by
forgot to bid
I guess do as SWA is doing with FL?
The result could have easily been a UsAir America West debacle. I think that was our leverage and I thought the whole point of allowing the pilots to see if they could work out something amicable and when DALS said no DAL temporarily "walked" away from the merger. We had a lot of leverage.
However, most of it was diluted because even when I was hired we openly talked about being furloughed. The signs in the economy that things were going to come crashing down were there not to mention oil prices were going to $150bb back then.
I'd say there was incredible leverage but it would've been a dangerous hand to play given the times. But it could have been played and there wouldn't have been shares given out to ease over the change to begin with.
We could have played hard ball and lost. Reality is both the DAL and the NWA pilots were in the middle of CH11 contracts and there was no reason, except it was the correct thing to do, to engage both groups and get a JPWA and binding SLI road map done from day one. It made the merger synergies add up faster, and got us to where we are today. It is not where any of us wanted to be, but the reality is that there was not two quarters of consecutive profits since 2Q 2001 when we were working on that deal. We are in different times now, and are approaching our first full section six in ten years. UCAL and AMR are there too. I expect them to make sigificant gains on our contract, and as a result we will do well at the table. It is this reason why all pilots need to be rowing the same way.
On a side note, LUV and their pilots killing the industry the last half decade with a great fuel hedge, and pft for their types, only further hurt the profession. That is what happens when we all do not work together and try to on up each other.