You are both correct. And incorrect.

7576 is correct that many TWA CAs not only kept their seats, but went on to enjoy left seat AA pay and retire from AA.

Cipollini is correct that many TWA CAs went straight from left seat to furlough.

Actually, there is historical precedence: back in 1985 when SWA purchased Muse Air (and renamed them TranStar), they went on to shut them down and laid off 100% of the pilots.. CAs and FOs. They then offered the pilots "re-interviews" for their jobs. And that was done in a thriving economy.

AA on the other hand had a mess on their hands: purchasing the assets of a troubled airline and shortly thereafter, 9/11: hence the huge furlough that affected thousands of both AA and TWA pilots.

You guys can argue until you're blue in the face as to what was fair and what wasn't, who got screwed and who didn't. The end result was that APA crafted a deal that has both sides yelling "UNFAIR" - however, they negotiated that deal using a PROCESS deemed unfair by Congress, hence Bond-McCaskill.

I was always critical of the process used by APA. While I realize I (and all AA pilots) pay union dues so that our union protects us, I also never believed that APA wanted to play by the rules most other unions used for SLIs - with the exception of SWAPA (which also tends to call its own shots.) I was always a firm believer that Binding Neutral Arbitration is the fairest PROCESS to iron out a SLI, and that is what should have been used with AA/TWA. Of course, they never solicited my opinion on the matter (although I did publicize my opinion more than once.)

In other words: I'm all for my union protecting me, but please do it using a fair, industry-proven process.

So, again - to set the record straight once again:

- Some TWA pilots (top 1/3) prospered after the AA/TWA deal (those that kept their CA seats and retired)
- Many TWA pilots (bottom 2/3) got royally screwed after the deal (those that got stapled/furloughed)
- Many AA pilots got royally screwed by the bad management decisions of the TWA purchase and Supp CC taking their flying away (DFW and ORD.) Many AA pilots also got furloughed after 9/11. (IMHO, AA was forced to furlough many more pilots as a result of the TWA deal. Without the TWA deal, I highly doubt we would have furloughed that many.)
- The process used by APA - crafting a deal with AMR and excluding the TWA pilots from it - was deemed unfair by Congress and resulted in Bond-McCaskill legislation to prevent that from happening again.
- However, in all fairness to APA, they were fed up at that point by the unrealistic demands - and boycotted meetings - by TWALPA, which finally led to the crafting of Supp CC between APA and AA. This bore much resemblance to SWA and Muse Air, when SWA finally got fed up with Muse's unrealistic demands. It's also reminiscent of the SWA/Frontier deal, where Frontier pilots wouldn't budge either. Yes, it has happened before - IMHO, AA was pretty close to dumping the whole TWA deal without an agreement at that point, hence the rushed Supp CC "gunshot wedding."

In the end - just like ANY and EVERY past merger - many folks on both sides feel they have been screwed, and will continue to feel that way forever, no matter what the argument.

I will concede that APA's (and SWAPA's) abuse of the system - crafting their own integrations by pointing a gun to the other side - led to government intervention on SLIs for the first time ever in airline history. That says a lot.