I agree with you on this. DOH never should have been in the C&BLs, and it should be removed. It is binding on no one, except USAPA and could tie our hands. I am planning on bringing it up to our new president.

Serious question though. I've always though Nic missed the mark on a couple points. First, his method of protecting the small number of US widebodies was absurd. Would you like to see his method of protecting widebody flying applied to a US/AA merger? Where every 777 capt, F/o, second F/O and IRO(whatever their terms) slot goes to AA on the top of the list and then we start slotting? So many people don't understand that is what Nicoalu did, and then he used a different slotting method for the rest of us.

The second part was the long longevity furloughs. Look at the Pan Am/National merger and see what that arbitrator had to say about slotting pilots with such disparities in longevity and age.

My personal feeling is that if there is going to be a slotted list, relative position makes more sense than slotting by equipment. If you are in the top X of a seniority list, you get the benefit of what that position brings, schedules, holidays etc. When you slot by equipment, a lot of guys that have no desire to fly Int'l get a bit of super seniority, just as our guys around 350-517 did. I wouldn't mind going to flat capt and F/O rates, with a small int'l override, but think that gets harder to do when you average them over 99 seats to 300+.

I have a gut feeling that a AA/US merger will never happen.