Originally Posted by cactusmike

That's not actually correct. Some groups do shoot for the moon but they get shot down instead. CAL in the CAL/UAL merger, AWA in the AWA/US merger as examples.

The arbitrators do not choose one side or the other. They look at the proposal, the facts of the situation and the proposed seniority methodology and they make their decision based on that. The actual seniority list is based on the methodology that the arbitrator decides fits the situation.

You are correct in that expectations can be raised when there is no conceivable way that they can be met. Arrogance and ignorance is a bad combination in a SLI. I've seen it first hand. But the butthurt from a perceived injustice won't last forever unless there is a methodology that perpetuates a split in the pilot groups. NWA/Republic is probably the poster child for that. Or the Air Tran/SWA hammer method of seniority integration. Once the groups are combined and people are free to bid wherever they want using the SLI that is arbitrated then people will lose the hostility. Keeping groups separate is what breeds hostility.