Originally Posted by
UalHvy
The United certificate was written in the 40s and had legal jargon from that time frame. The CAL certificate was redone in the 80s during bankruptcy. The requirements were much less onerous and that is why the CAL certificate was used.
Not to mention the fact that CAL spent 3+ yrs devoted to developing, training, proving, and checking the crews for the RNAV/RNP approach criteria. Getting the .3 minimums was one thing (as SWA has now), then having the FAA sign-off on the .15 was a LONG time of paper/approval by the FAA.
Vacating the CAL Ops Cert would have null/voided the approval that CAL had received from the FAA in which to exercise those approaches/minimums. Going to the UA Ops Cert would have forced the Merged Flt Ops into having to repeat the entire certification process under L-UA's Ops Cert. With this being a big player in approaches that CAL trained for (as evidence of last years MV/LOE), it's something they were/are very serious in using from this point forward.
The FAA was playing the "No Waivers, No Favors" on that topic.
(Source: Capt E.C. B756 Flt Mgr.)