Originally Posted by
Sliceback
Perhaps a better response would be to show where LUS actually was 'superior' to LAA in the areas mentioned?
You can go from home to training.
Without the merger we still had a better contract.
1.) Health care costs/plans -- lower costs, with a max percentage, tied to Management plans (LUS-East). More variety of plans, with greater max coverages.
2.) West Trip Rig/Min Day (5:15 per calendar day vs duty period).
3.) West STD (sorry, couldn't resist abbreviating that just to be immature) coverage -- gone now.
4.) Check Airman/Training Section -- LAWA best overall with more days off/higher pay, LUS(e) also better. Included 3 times as many fly-days per year (3/month vs 14 per year now), higher monthly guarantee (95 vs 88.2 hours) for the same number of days (lower daily pay for events now). Ability to double up on events, reducing total number of work days. And don't even get me started about replacing Line-qualified F/O Instructor Pilots with non-flying, non-seniority list, NON-DUES PAYING (to APA) Sim-Ps.
5.) LUS profit sharing (traded away for $0.10/hour LAA per diem increase...).
6.) LUS(e) Line building/improvement (Line bids, followed by SAP -- improvement -- then secondary lines, vs. lines come out and they're bid on). LAWA trip trading rules, and ability for Reserve aggressive pick-up. Gone now...
Those are just a few of the areas where we took contractual steps backwards. But, to be fair, we did get a huge raise. So, if pay is your ONLY measure of status, then AA was the superior airline. No doubt about it. Most of us, however, take a lot more than simply pay into account...
Now, I won't even get into how far backwards the training program has gone (Level 5 AQP to Level 3) or the blatant obstruction to one of the best TEM programs in the country. Or career progression -- widebody IRO (or FB, I think you guys call them) goes more junior on the LUS side. I won't even bring up Horton's threats of outsourcing more of the LAA domestic flying to RJs and additional furloughs, because it is merely a speculative position.
One could write a book about this merger, and how to pit one group against another, it was so successful. In fact, that just shows how "superior" Jerry Glass and his company really is in all of this.
On a positive note, the company recognizes that these divisions may cause long-term damage, and is talking to one of the leading TEM/H-Facs companies in the US about coming in to fix it, post-integration. So, maybe there is hope "we can all just get along."