Originally Posted by
drrhythm2
Not to send the thread in an entirely different direction, but I can't imagine one reason why the SLI would or should favor ASA. Because they have a few people that have been there forever? Despite what many over there seem to think, they didn't buy us. They had no involvement in our purchase at all; they were simply acquired by Skywest.
While ASA did not wholly buy XJET, ASA was in a much better position finically than XJET. ASA had been generating strong profits for years while XJET had been bleeding cash like crazy. Obviously this is not the pilots fault, as management is to blame, but the attitude that ASA had nothing to do with the ability to purchase XJET is a bit exagurated. Skywest Inc is where the profits flow, so of course that's where the money comes from when all the outstanding stock is purchased. The strong profits from ASA thus played a role in the acquisition. If it wasn't for the whole surejet fiasco, the name expressjet and the certificate would no longer exist. I'm sick of all these legacy expressjet guys I bump into acting as if they "saved" ASA and they run the show.
The company formerly known as Asa, did not have the ability to purchase another company. The purchase was made by Skywest inc. plain and simple, and not open to interpretation. Skywest inc, then decided to merge ExpressJet with the former Asa. This is all public knowledge and published information from the documents that Jerry and co. put out at the time of the purchase.
Let's look at the facts and you decide:
The CRJ side is losing aircraft (700's that went to gojets), and now potentially losing 200 flying.
The company already decided that there will not be a flush bid due to training costs, and the precedent set by Pinnacle.
Because the ERJ side is significantly larger in numbers, there's nothing that can keep us from decertifying ALPA (see USAir east), and stretching this out for years if the outcome of SLI is not fair. The company knows this, and although integration is not part of their process, rest assure they will have influence over it.
In a fair system, seats and bases will be protected, possible seat locks and fences to go with them; and everyone will be unhappy! It's that simple really. Nothing else will be acceptable. Don't like it? Find another job, but regardless of what formula they use, this will be the outcome.