Originally Posted by
Laker24
I'm not intoxicated or salivating over a windfall from the AA pilots. But your proposal placed thousands of East pilots who are JUNIOR to me on the NIC list senior to me. That will not fly. If you want to argue I don't have the expectation of flying a 777 then go ahead. As long as East pilots who are junior to me on the NIC remain junior to me I will not complain.
But just so we are clear you did not have the expectation of making 280/hour flying as 767 captain. Absent the merger your expectation was shrinkage and pay cuts. Certainly not a large pay raise and growth. We have a list of witnesses who worked on the AA ch11 who will testify to that fact. You can't claim that without Doug Parker you would magically get industry leading wages. It's spelled out quite clearly in our brief that both US Airways and AA would have suffered a slow death as stand alone carriers.
Are these the same "experts" who because of their belief that we had no (or little) career expectations that formulated you list and feathered AA pilots with those in the West ?
Yes, I'm sure your "experts" will give their opinions on our "slow death" without you and I'm sure the LAA committee will offer equally competing opinions. I suppose on the same subject, where would a stand alone US Airways end up considering it was neither fish (a legacy) nor fowl (a low cost LCC) ?
I would expect that a fair argument would be made for your even faster demise than ours.
Originally Posted by
Laker24
Again I don't think fences will fly. Us Airways has been steadily increasing the 330 fleet and has plenty of A350's on order. US Airways pilots both east and west had expectations to fly widebody jets. The ruling by the 9th confirms that the tyranny of the majority would not last into perpetuity.
But neither will the tyranny of the weak rise from the ashes of the destruction of the tyranny of the majority. Look, clearly, this development only WIDENS the differences the various segments of this future pilot group have about what they believe to be fair and equitable and it may just be that if the arbitrators might find fences the least objectionable of what will clearly be a VERY difficult decision, they will use them, otherwise a different feathering ratio. The fact remains that IF the Nic is used in pure form against LAA pilots AND it propels West pilots to a more advantageous position at THEIR expense, THAT is a windfall and the arbitration process is designed to prevent that. Not even the 9th can change what the sacrosanct position of an NMB arbitration rules and isn't that the whole crux of what they just ruled on in YOUR FAVOR ?
They reaffirmed that arbitrated results are valid and even if one side believes it unfair (like East pilots did), it IS the award. After reading the LAA committees PMP, I'm comfortable with where the LAA committee will position themselves both from a fair and balanced proposal position as well as a defense one regarding the expected attacks by West witnesses to belittle our pre-merger carrier, it's future and our pre-merger expectations. I would expect some alterations now as the previous proposed list does not use a Nic assumption.