Originally Posted by
ExperimentalAB
True, but they didn't have much leverage anyway - wasn't it 30% or so had active apps in with Southwest anyway?
That's irrelevant; I’m sure they also had their apps in at UPS, FedEx and several others. I don’t remember a judge ever using that to justify a crappy SLI. If the AirTran pilots had the option to reject the merger I guarantee they would have. AirTran was a very profitable airline that just passed a new TA and in 2010 they had their most profitable year ever while competing against the two most competitive airlines in the US (Delta in ATL and Southwest in MCO and BWI). The fact is Southwest needed AirTran more than AirTran needed Southwest. Reasons? There are many but two of them being that AirTran was seriously hurting SW in BWI and MCO and they needed AirTran's NE shuttle and international operations.
IMO the AirTran pilots got raped.
Last edited by MatchPoint; 08-31-2012 at 02:38 PM.