Originally Posted by
baseball
I have seen a seniority list with 6006 pilots on it.
It was right before PBS implementation.
Not true. While PBS definitely had a deleterious effect on our staffing, we had more pilots on property the year after its implementation (2007) than the year it was implemented (2006) or prior year (2005). While I believe we had over 5,000 pilots at one point, I don't believe we ever got close to 6K. Check the MIT Airline Database to see for yourself.
The info you have on the JV LOA is not correct. I definitely agree it had the backing of Pierce, but all best indicators are that Zullo was given a green light to do it and the NC was not involved. Immediately after the second refusal for the LOA Zullo resigned. He actually wanted the MEC to adopt it and NOT send it to the pilots for a vote. That was probably why it failed. ANA was a peripheral piece. The real meat and potatoes was to essentially outsource the flying to get the price of a pilot lower. The proof here would be obvious. CAL thought it could negotiate partnership agreements with international carriers (code share) to do the long haul flying as we never really replaced the DC10 fleet upon retirement. With a lack of wide-bodies, and no way to solve that problem (lack of orders, and no-caving from MEC) CAL thought it juicy to look at the route network via a merger. UAL made sense due to three factors: ALPA-ALPA, wide-body-international network, and non overlapping/non redundant domestic network. With only 9 overlapping domestic routes, and keeping all 9 it made it very appealing. But, I think it all started with that JV LOA. It wasn't really a joint venture. To do a JV you would need to name a suitor. The JV LOA would have likely precluded a merger, however, it for sure would have postponed one. Since CAL hadn't had a meaningful pay raise since contract 98 the JV LOA with the 2 percent pay raise was simply a slap in the face. It would have only absorbed about 60 percent of that years cost of living increase due to inflation.
I don't want to speak in absolutes here because it was a long time ago and I don't think I heard a thing about it until after the fact, so I really didn't pay much attention to the details since it was already in the past. However, I was a (very) low level volunteer and had slightly more access to info and the post-mortem over the issue than a typical line pilot. What I remember is there was zero domestic component and possibly not even an Atlantic component to the JV flying and it was targeted to ANA. I find it hard to believe DZ thought he had that much influence and recall being told it was NC Chair MF who presented it and was replaced soon after its rejection. We had WB orders in the 787 and the 767 fleet had largely replaced the DC-10 fleet which had been parked almost immediately after 9/11, though admittedly, we lacked the number of long haul airframes we wanted. I don't know what finally drove the merger, but it was rejected in 2008, the year all of this was going on.