On September 5 the United Merger Committee’s counsel wrote to the Arbitration Board asking the Board to review and correct the erroneous statement in the Board’s Opinion that United’s B787/A350 order was placed after the announcement of the merger on May 3, 2010, and to revise the conditions and restriction reserving the B787s for the Continental pilots if the Board deemed that appropriate. The Continental Merger Committee replied on September 10 that no revisions should be made but we also proceeded to mention several major areas of concern to us as well. We also wrote a separate letter concerning two Continental pilots who were inadvertently left off the Integrated Seniority List in the Opinion and Award as the two Merger Committees could not agree on where to place these two pilots on the ISL. The Board responded to these letters on October 4.

With respect to the United Merger Committee’s issue with the B787 condition and restriction as well as to our response raising additional factual and substantive errors in the Opinion and Award, the Board said, “After carefully considering and discussing in executive session the various matters presented therein, the Board denies all requests for substantive changes in the language of the Opinion and Award.”

The Board did, however, decide to place the two inadvertently omitted Continental pilots on the ISL in the manner in which we originally suggested. We notified those pilots earlier this week of their upcoming placement on the ISL.

Among the final actions taken by the CAL MEC was the creation of a Merger Dispute Fund. The CAL DRC (and any issues that arise that need counsel and representation) will be funded by the Merger Dispute Fund that was created from the money collected earlier and previously used to support SLI activities.

Many of you have written the Merger Committee asking for the DRC form that is mentioned in Exhibit B of the Opinion and Award (which details the Dispute Resolution Process). We are actively discussing that form with the UAL Representatives on the DRC and hope to achieve an agreement on the exact format soon. Once the form is completed, it will be posted on the L-CAL ISL DRC website.

There will be a separate web page on the UAL MEC website for the CAL DRC and L-CAL pilots (and the same will exist for the UAL DRC and L-UAL pilots). This page will have links to various documents and information that is necessary. The L-CAL webpage can be found by clicking the link on the www.ual.alpa.org website (this link will be added in the next few days) or you can navigate directly to the page at www.alpa.org/caldrc (ALPA login required). Additionally, an email address has been created for L-CAL pilots to contact the CAL Representatives on the DRC and submit their claims. That email address is [email protected].

Lastly, we have received many questions regarding the purpose of Exhibit B and the Dispute Resolution Process. We believe it is important to refer back to the exact language of Exhibit B in order to understand the purpose and scope of this process. That language says:

Among the pilots and within ALPA, the DRC shall be empowered to consider and resolve the claim(s) of an individual pilot or group of pilots whose name(s) appear on the ISSL accompanying the EKN Award arising out of the interpretation or application of the Award/ISL Agreement and/or any awards or settlements interpreting or applying the Award.

So, the process is to resolve claims of pilots "arising out of the interpretation or application of the Award." That means that the process is not for re-litigating issues that were resolved in the Award. It is only for interpretation questions.