Wow, that may have been the best 'drive-by' post I have ever seen on this board. 4 pages so far and we all know that he will not answer at all except to say something along the lines of 'I know the truth and you will see if you vote this down.' The post itself doesn't make me mad and really could have been made by simply picking and pulling from the various posts we all have made about this deal that have included discussions on potential negatives if this doesn't go through.

How big would these bases be to start out to 'mostly' soak up 500 pilots? 335 pilots would be 67% of that surplus, 375 would be 75%. Seems pretty big for a new domicile(s) especially when one doesn't even have operational aircraft on property yet. How exactly are they getting those 4.5 year and under previously trained 757 guys to just volunteer to go over to Paris with or without an LOA? If they hire into both seats after the bid, those pilots would be on our list and it's still FDX flying so what exactly is the problem? As far as foreign pilots go, let's be honest it would never get to that point over this particular deal. The MEC would file a grievance and a temporary injunction at which point in time and likely negotiate a settlement-although I grant you it would likely be one that we wouldn't like. In addition, our good Uncle Prater wouldn't let it get that far as it would affect his interests and wallet.

Seems to me that if all of this was as imminent of a threat as you imply, that the MEC would be squawking a lot more about this and campaigning hard ahead of July 23rd instead of limping along to the finish line like they have thus far. Since you didn't use the word 'furlough', I would say that you'd have to be mgt. or some sort of lower level ALPA committee member on an 'approved' leak. A line puke would have just said 'hundreds of people on the street, big excesses, downgrades and stagnation,' as there is little to lose if somewhere is clever enough to track down their identity. My gut says management since you elected to use the word 'legal' ahead of contractual and your constant use of pilot buzzwords like career expectations and how a continued hiring process would affect our positions. P.S. the upside of hiring all of those experienced pilots the last few years is strong candidates for potential quick upgrades anywhere, the downside is that they are less moved by scare tactics-'there is nothing that you can do to me, that Castro hasn't already done'.