Cacti is half-right on the question of when USAPA ceases to exist. As our bargaining agent, USAPA will be gone by the end of 2014. Per the MOU/MTA, APA will seek single-carrier status four months after POR (around February 2014). The NMB will render its decision 6-8 months thereafter, and given the numbers involved APA will probably take over as the bargaining agent without an election. An election could stretch the process somewhat, but regardless, it looks like West pilots will get what they really want for Christmas (the end of USAPA) next year.

That having been said, the SLI may very well not be done by then. Upon POR, USAPA and APA develop an integration protocol agreement, then commence direct negotiations on seniority. Anyone who thinks a negotiated seniority list is a realistic possibility is deluding themselves. Even if we receive absolute clarity on the Nicolau issue from the courts (one way or the other), I have a fair idea of what the initial proposals of both sides might look like, and they will be so ludicrously top-heavy for their respective sides that they'll never pass muster with the opposition. And remember, if the respective Merger Committees WERE to agree on a list, the APA and USAPA boards would have to approve, and there would have to be a dual membership ratification. I don't see a majority of either side voting in such a list, if it even got that far (which, again, I seriously doubt).

So, to no one's surprise, the SLI goes to arbitration. The arbitration timeline in the MOU/MTA is pretty open, given the unpredictable variables involved. We have to settle on three arbitrators, get them all together, along with all the expert witnesses, time for evidentiary hearings, study of proposals, etc., then for the arbitrators to deliberate and rule. It is very likely that that process will extend beyond the effective date of APA becoming the CBA for the combined AA/US pilot group.

At that point, USAPA is no longer the CBA, but the (former) USAPA Merger Committee will continue to exist in some form (whether as an autonomous segment of APA or a tail remnant of USAPA, I don't know) until the integrated seniority list becomes final. Only at THAT point would all vestiges of USAPA - indeed, all vestiges of the separate pre-merger airlines - cease to exist.

I agree that there is no way Parker will let anyone (the West pilots or any other subset) derail the merger, and I don't believe the West pilots want that to happen. The most the West pilots will do is obtain an injuction staying the SLI process until the courts rule on the seniority issues involved. And if they do, the company won't particularly care. Our costs are known for all groups (via the MOU/MTA) and that's all it takes to get them out of BK. If they have to schedule us separately a while longer, that's no real skin off their backs. They've got probably two years of post-POR work to fully integrate anyhow. Our little backyard brawl won't slow them one bit.

VFC