Originally Posted by
OscartheGrouch
Okay there TS, here is some cake to chew on. As I have said in the past the Pan Am deal included lying to very senior pilots (PAA) that DAL would feed the new Pan Am and there was no need to fight for transition to DAL. DAL then bought all the best assets and pulled the plug (to the tune of a promised 25 million dollars) just before Christmas of '91. This benefited DAL pilots by not offering senior Pan Am pilots the chance to transition. I won't get in to the details until it is again questioned but DAL (with no argument from the DAL pilots) screwed over the Pan Am pilots in many ways only to dump the senior ones as a Christmas present.
I believe you were there at the time so if you have a different explanation on what I have described please feel free to enlighten us as to what really happened. You personally benefited from what happened to the Pan Am pilots but yet you wish to throw feces at myself and those here at SWA. Really?
The Oscar
The PAA deal was a long time ago, and I do not remember a lot of the specifics. What I do remember is this: It was not DALPA that made any promises to the PAA pilots. There were shenanigans going on over at PAA that resulted in pilots that hadn't stepped foot on a 727 in YEARS being "qualified" so that they could come over. A LOT went on on the PAA side of the equation to which neither DAL nor DALPA were party. IOW, there were a ton of PAA pilots that threw feces on their own. All of that is hearsay however, but I have no reason to believe otherwise. The "benefit" I got out of the deal since I was so very junior at the time, was 5 years on the panel. Stagnation. Initially. Like you at SWA, we eventually saw the benefit at the combined carrier in increased routes (Europe) and a larger footprint worldwide. There were PAA pilots that came across the line that had been furloughed at PAA for 18 years (One I can remember went back into the Navy and retired as an O-6) and most of them came in right on top of me. However.. the big difference between the two deals that you conveniently omit is that PAA was bankrupt, and would have been shutting the doors and everybody would have lost their jobs. Everybody.... Your deal was nothing close. IT was SWA that needed AT, not the other way around. You stomped on those guys, and should be ashamed to have allowed GK to be your hatchet man, but it is obvious that you aren't... I will bet you this though. If SWA does another deal, you will have the fight of a lifetime on your hands, because the entire industry knows what you did this time, and that won't fly anymore... Best of luck.