Carl,

It took some research.

In 1998 ALPA gutted and bifurcated its Merger and Alter-ego policy.

The policy prior to these changes reflected the lessons of the Texas Air fiasco and formally declared that alter egos in any form to be the greatest threat to ALPA and they were not to be tolerated under any circumstances. At that time the definition of an alter ego was "When management forms or acquires another company for the purpose of operating an airline, it shall be deemed an alter ego..." ALPA's policy sought to prevent the formation of alter egos. If formed or acquired, ALPA's weapon of choice was the forced merger of the seniority lists. Thus the reason why the merger and alter ego policies were one in the same.

In 1998 ALPA bifurcated the Merger and Alter-ego policy and, worse, gutted the key definitions in the merger policy making it totally discretionary. ALPA said the primary motive was the Duke-Spellacy case and they didn't want to get pinned down in court again.

The Delta MEC was the instigator of the change and the timing, just months prior to Delta's purchase of ASA, suggests the Delta MEC had advanced knowledge of management's intentions concerning both ASA and Comair.

In effect, you could say ALPA's 1998 decision sowed the seeds of their own decline and the rise of the start-up rival unions. It wasn't just a bad decision, but it was the product of a horribly flawed strategic analysis where objective facts didn't matter.

As stated earlier, the disunity of the DPA is nothing new. It's genesis was right here, it resonates with the logic of the Delta MEC and Admin 15 years ago.