Please all you AMR pilots, please do your homework on the bankruptcy process. I was at UAL during ours, and watched us repeat the same mistakes, EXACTLY, as USAir. Then I watched Delta pilots do the same. I actually heard 2 Delta pilots arguing on an LAX crew bus that "They wouldn't take our pensions, we are Delta. We are different". Do you know how many times I heard that at UAL?
I highly recommend educating yourselves on the section 1113 of the bankruptcy code. Our company "threatened" us with it, and the Union backed them up and said we would be better off with a consensual agreement. 3 consensual agreements later, with a loss of half our pay, all of our A plan, and all of our workrules, we would have been far better off with 1113.
Here is a secret, and please look it up on the internet. Section 1113 was put in the bankruptcy code in, I believe, 1983. It was created to stop companies from filing bankruptcy soley for the purpose of gutting union contracts. It does allow for contract changes, but puts the burden of proof on the company to PROVE that all creditors in bankruptcy are taking a haircut. They cannot simply cut employee pay. And the term limit of these imposed changes is......bankruptcy exit.
Please don't follow our mistakes. Unfortunately, we were not smart enough to take the advice of the USair pilots before us.
Sometimes a job is not worth saving. If USair or UAL would have "burned the house down", right now I would be an 8 year FO at another major airline, making 170 bucks an hour. Instead, we all caved to company and ALPA demands, and now the job is not worth having, at least for me. We brought the whole industry down.
I left over 3 years ago for far greener pastures (Asia contract flying).