Originally Posted by Sweatsock

I think APA was just handed the winning card. West got what they wanted and are now a separate body on their own, a meager 1400 ish pilots out of 15000. About 50% of the east will be retired in 5 years which will leave about the same number of east pilots as the west.

When all is said and done those who are Captains now will be captains post SLI, those that are F/O's will be F/o's after.

In reality by the time the dust settles the last 10 years will be a moot point.

Even if the arbitrators handed the west the NIC list prior to integration with APA, which is a very very long shot, it really wont matter in the grand scheme of things. Had age 60 not changed the whole thing would have been over 5 years ago.

No matter what happens now the guys that would have been hurt the worst by the NIC on the east 10 years ago are all in their last few years now. Most are already over 60 in the left seat and safe from a bump and flush most likely.

When the dust settles the only ones on the east left will be a few from the 1988 89 hires, then airways had 10 years of no hiring till 99. Of which only about 500 total remain from that period (89 to 2000 hires) So for that group even if they got NIC'd completely at most they lost maybe 4 years seniority. Which when mixed in with 15000 pilots is nothing.

No I would say the biggest challenge to the west guys is going to be the AA pilots. They are the ones that are going to fight tooth and nail to keep NIC from being used in any fashion. Now that all the 84 to 87 east hires are going to be gone very soon, certainly before any widebody fences are finished, the only threat to APA pilots are the west guys hired in 99 to 2005 that under NIC would be slotted in with all those soon to be retired 84 to 87 east guys.