Originally Posted by
Coto Pilot
As has been posted, none of us know what an arbitrator will decide. That being said, the fact that you are currently furloughed or were furloughed at some point in your career has little to do with your long term career expectations. There are United furloughees that be it not for the merger, would have been number one on the seniority list when they retired, that didn't change because they happened to be furloughed for a period of time. The right of recall is contractually negotiated and your relative position on the list doesn't change when you return, although you might move up if some ahead of you resign. A United pilot hired in 1999 or 2000 would have approximately 1700 Continental pilots that were hired after them. If you took away credit for the years on furlough during the SLI, almost all of those Continental pilots would still be behind them because Continental didn't do the bulk of their hiring until the mid 2000's. ALPA policy doesn't dictate how to weigh each of the criteria, that will be up to the arbitrtator. As for the viability of United without Continental, Jeff Smisek is on record as saying that Continental would have gone away without the merger.
Now Coto I usually find your posts factual, with that said: Are you saying furloughed pilots are entitled to a DOH integration on the SLI?
Two words keep getting interchanged here: Longevity as opposed to Length of Service, longevity is NOT length of service. While longevity sounds all well and good, 10 yr longevity with a hire date of 2002 most certainly does not mean a furloughed pilot has 10 years on property for "length of service"
For the record, I am not opposed to longevity for the purposes of pay. However, to say that a furloughed pilot with 3 yrs length of service deserves a longevity position on the SLI in front of other pilots who have more than 3 yrs length of service is absurd. I respect your right to fight for the LUAL pilots but the path your heading down is ala USAIR with the longevity/DOH argument.
"As for the viability of United without Continental, Jeff Smisek is on record as saying that Continental would have gone away without the merger."
Something tells me I could find the exact same quote by Tilton a few short years ago. We need to get past this "my watch is bigger than yours" garbage.