Originally Posted by
B757200ER
Wrong. Not all arbitrators use that word----APA used it liberally when AA bought TWA, to seemingly justify stapling 60% of TWA's 2400 pilots---including myself. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, are you sure you want an arbitrator (which AA & their 'unions' ensured TWA employees wouldn't have access to) to objectively (or subjectively) decide yours?
EVERY arbitrator figures in career expectations when deciding an integration. Maybe they don't use that specific word: fine - they use some other word or formula. Who cares. Bottom line, they have always used it and will continue to use it. How else can an arbitrator justify feathering in thousands of pilots from two different groups from two different airlines with different growth/fleet/retirements/etc? APA did exactly what an arbitrator would have done - figured it from the snapshot date based on the future of both carriers from that date on. The difference - and YOU KNOW I ALWAYS ACKNOWLEDGE THIS!! - is that APA called all the shots. UNFAIRLY! But they did it with much advice from arbitrators with the premise of protecting as many APA jobs as they could, while designing it to withstand any lawsuit.
You say your career expectations are 'very, very different' from the TWA pilot group at the time AA bought TWA (all of it, not just pieces); well answer me this: How many numbers are you away from the most junior CA at AA? I'm guessing if you're a '99 hire about 4000+. I was 250 numbers away from M80/717 CA at TWA, and with annual attition at 200+, do the math. Don't even think for a second your career expectations are superior, higher or more valuable than mine were. Instead of upgrading to CA at a major airline, I was stapled, furloughed and then had to suffer the insult of the likes of YOU coming to STL to fly in MY seat while I got furloughed.
First of all, you didn't own any seat. Neither did I. AMR owned it. So lose your holier than thou attitude about what you "owned" and what you didn't. You didn't own squat, and neither did I.
Second of all, I am exactly 2000 #s from CA upgrade. Who gives a crap? Estimated CA upgrade shouldn't figure into career expectations at all: it changes on a whim and you know it. You could have been a 25 year CA at TWA... what if your airline was downsizing and furloughing while AA was growing and hiring? What should be done then - give you a CA seat at AA and furlough a native? You see, that's career expectations for you. Here is the bottom FACTUAL line, ER: AA today bears no resemblance whatsoever to TWA in 2001. Way ahead on size, financials, routes, fleet expansion, retirements... I could go on and on.
'No comparison', you say? I disagree.
Nope - not one comparison at all. TWA was practically a domestic airline at time of asset acquisition with a few Carib and Europe routes. South America? NONE. Asia? NONE. Far East? NONE. Widebodies? a few 762s and 763s. 777s? NONE. If AMR were that size today as well, I would gladly hand you this argument and say you are 100% right. But that ain't the case and you know it. AA/US is a complete merger of one large airline and one extremely large airline - in fact it is USAir who needs AA more than AA needs USAir. And the arbitrator will most likely decide the integration in the fairest way possible - and yes one of his factors will be CAREER EXPECTATIONS. AA/USAIR is NOT an asset acquisition with AA declaring BK as a condition of purchase.
Apples and oranges, my friend.
I'll close by saying the the entire process of the AA/TWA deal crafted by APA and AMR was unfair. No doubt about it. The ONLY fair way is through a binding neutral. But I'll also claim that a binding neutral would have given you guys something very similar, with at least one of his factors based on - you guessed it - career expectations.