Originally Posted by
Lerxst
Decision 83 hasn't been used in any ALPA contract since well before the concessionary/bankrupt ones the industry just finished cycling thru. My point was to simply illustrate that we were able to secure higher pay rates for MOST pilots coming from 2 dissimilar contracts in a merger situation.
Aircraft slated to retire during this and early into the next cycle will generally be replaced with smaller aircraft that will pay as much or more than the outgoing ones.
I think the biggest reason we ended up where we are was that somewhere along the way the Delta contract became the benchmark we had to shoot and settle for. They have banding that is similar in some respects, and dissimilar where we have the advantage; their airbus NB pays lower than their 737 NG. For a first bite at the apple we did okay and subjectively mirrored Delta's gains on the whole.
With the next cycle just around the corner I think we are well positioned to reestablish the pattern bargaining of old between us, AA, and DAL that will allow for a more rational division now that the end state fleet plan is firming up.
Well not really ... C2000 which was just a few months prior (not "well prior") to the BK contracts, was in fact a Decision 83 contract. The fact that C2012 banded all these aircraft was just as stated ... a seniority argument LCAL attempted use to blunt LUAL's larger A/C with respect to Career Expectations. A simple example of that was when the LCAL EWR Cap Rep publically stated that the LCAL MEC would hold up the contract if it didn't include paybanding.