Originally Posted by
jsled
Some valid points for sure, esp. regarding Category and Status. Junior UAL pilots, esp. furloughees, generally do not fair well in that argument.....but....like Airhoss and Motch were discussing above, there has to be a balance. Career Expectations: A UAL fellow like myself hired in 1997, was going to retire 158/8700 or in the top 1.8%. Then, after shinkage, but before the merger it was about 158/7000 or the top 2.2%. Well, 2.2% of the combined airline of 12000 is 264. IOW, using a relative seniority argument for Career Expectations, my retirement number should slide about 106 numbers.
This is one thing that makes the SLI so hard here. Balancing the larger number of narrowbody Captain slots at CAL with the larger number of widebody Captain and F/O slots at UAL. I don't think I should take your n/b Captain seat tomorrow, but at the same time, I don't want you to take my w/b Captain seat in 5 or 10 years. Sure, some CAL guys will say "fence it then...I don't want it" but that is total BS. I don't retire until 2033. We gonna fence it till then???? NOPE. And just cause some SAY they don't want it, what happens in 10 years?? Talk is cheap.
Now Longevity...that's the third thing. Have not seen this word in an ALPA merger policy since I have been in ALPA (1991). That is a can of worms. You made a solid argument regarding Category and Status. I made one for Career Expectations. Now Logevity. Using myself as an example, it's nice to know that 15 years of continuous service might count for something.
I hope they can figure this out without alot of fences, but I believe if fences are needed, It would be better to fence UAL guys off your n/b Captain slots for a period rather than fence CAL guys off of our w/b (except for a short fence for w/b Captain to protect guys near retirement). After all, I don't believe i should be an instant Captain, nor do I believe my Career Expectations regarding my last 5-10 years should change DRAMATICALLY by piling on a ton of young guppy Captains ahead of me who were hired in the last 10-12 years.
JMHO,
Sled
With regard to career expectations:
I would argue that arguments for what percentage will I retire at most likely won't hold a lot of weight (I'm not an arbitrator though). Here's my reasoning. First of all, for someone at the beginning of a career, its too long term in the future. If you're only 5 yrs from retirement, the argument is much better. How many pilots in the past have been a newhire and projected hiring at X% and when they finally retire, actually retire within +/- 2%. I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's not too accurate a gauge. I'm sure the merger committees are gonculating those #s though. It's a nice warm fuzzy to discuss in newhire class, but historically not very accurate, especially considering no one knows if they will ever be furloughed or if there will be growth.
Airlines grow, and airlines shrink. Chances are, in 2033, before you retire, the % of widebody aircraft to narrowbody aircraft won't even be close to it what it is now. What if we lose 30 widebody aircraft and we gain 100 SNB aircraft in that time period? What happens if we gain 30 WB aircraft and lose 100 NB aircraft? It's too ambiguous. The further you have until retirement, the worse the argument "career expectations" are. In my opinion, career expectations are really, where will I be next year, where will I be 5 years from now, and maybe where will I be in 10. Anything longer than that is impossible to determine.
As for longevity:
Take a look at how DL guys decided how longevity worked. If it works the same, which I'm sure there will be variations, guys at DL were basically merged on a relative seniority basis. Where longevity played a part is when you're shuffled in the deck. If you're integrating the list of pilots at 89.9% seniority, and say that's 10 pilots. We want all those pilots to stay within a certain percentage point(in this example 0.1%), but who goes on top. Well, at DL/NWA, that's where longevity played a part. So of the 10 guys at 89.9% seniority, if 6 of them at UAL had 12 yrs longevity, where the 4 at CAL only had around 5 years, well the 6 at UAL would get shuffled in at a higher spot. I have no idea if that's how it will work at UAL, but we're both ALPA carriers like DL/NWA, and that's how it worked over there just a few short years ago.
That seems fair to me (obviously I'm biased) and it went over fairly well at DL/NWA(and has been lauded as the smoothest integration, possibly ever), so I would hope we would see something similar. The problem exists with the 1437 pilots on furlough(neither DL or NWA had furloughs in their integration).
It appears that some UAL guys think that 1437 furloughs should have an equal spot, even though they currently don't hold a position at UAL. This also doesn't take into account that there are another 300 newhire positions at CAL since the merger and soon to be more come the fall. So, a junior person at CAL has gone up in seniority over the past 2 years, a junior person at UAL has stayed stagnant since the furlough. Will those of us at CAL who have gained seniority over the past few years lose that same seniority in an SLI? I would hope not...