Originally Posted by
mccurtool
First Time post here.... Having been on the sidelines for the last 4 years (furloughed) the most frustrating argument I have read (on several thread topics) has been when someone alludes to UAL's parking of the 737 fleet (20% of the fleet) and subsequent furloughs as having nothing to do with this merger.
I started at Continental Express in 1998 and commuted for 9 years on a lot of CAL jump seats. To say that the culture at UAL and CAL are different is a huge understatement.
The planning for and execution of the Merger that was announced in May 2010 had begun years prior. The earliest UAL/CAL merger discussions on record (WSJ) were in late 2006. The discussions did not get serious until the DAL/NWA discussions began. Consider the following sequence of events with regards to UAL furloughs:
1/15/2008 - Delta in simultaneous merger talks with NWA/UAL (USA Today)
2/15/2008 - UAL/CAL in advanced merger talks (NY Times)
4/14/2008 - DAL/NWA merger announced
4/26/2008 - CAL decides not to merger w/UAL
6/4/2008 - UAL to park 94 737's (Roughly 20% of the fleet)
6/19/2008 - CAL to join Star Alliance (Multiple sources)
8/19/2008 - CAL to furlough 137 pilots
7/16/2009 - Larry Kellner to step down (USA Today)
10/27/2009 - Last UAL 737 flight
5/3/2010 - UAL/CAL merger announced
Maybe I am naive, but I do not believe these events happened independent of each other. I feel there was a strategic plan in place long before May 2010.
I agree with you that parking the UAL 737 fleet and furloughing 1437 UAL pilots helped facilitate the merger. No one on the L-CAL list will see it that way. By the way, here are some of the 737 vacancies for L-CAL:
DEN 737 CA - 34 78 78 44 Vacancies
DEN 737 FO - 39 77 77 38 Vacancies
LAX 737 CA 3 72 82 82 10 Vacancies
LAX 737 FO - 72 83 83 11 Vacancies
ORD 737 CA - 34 73 73 39 Vacancies
ORD 737 FO - 36 72 72 36 Vacancies
I think management would prefer us to be the next USAir, bump/furlough pilots from the L-UAL list, and send them to the L-CAL list if they still want a job. The longer they can operate this way, more money in their pockets.