Originally Posted by
sleeves
Actually, Continental had a few that turned 60 before the age changed, were put in the training dept. per a relationship with Fred Abbot or Fred Stankovich and then came back to the line after the age changed with their old seniority. So, maybe Allen is hoping to be grouped together with those folks.
I filed a grievance over what Abbot did. A few points:
1. ALPA wouldn't go to level 3 on the grievance.
2. Every carrier under part 121 (except CAL) retired their pilots as required by the law. But, CAL legal counsel authored their opinion and the FAA published their Q and A as regulatory in nature. Later it was redacted. But the IAH FAA FSDO office uniquely allowed these "instructors and check airman" who were medically retired to return as the FAA in Houston likely lobbied and influenced by Abbot allowed it.
3. Every other 121 airline Check airman had received letters of revocation of their check airman status upon reaching the mandatory retirement age. ( I saw the letters from DAL, AA, UA, and world check airman).
4. Arbitrator's preliminary ruling stated: "no way to correct for the damages caused to the junior pilots due to the cascading and downward affects of subsequent perm bids, vacation bids, monthly bids, and the various status changes affecting thousands of pilots below them. Another words, arbitrator had no way to calculate damages.
5. My suggestion was to re-run each and every bid the airline ran post the age change and remove the instructors/check airman form the list as if they had retired. Arbitrator too lazy for that.
6. These pilots created their own lobby group called the senior pilots coalition. They were pretty effective at manipulating the law-makers and the FAA alike. Likely strings being pulled by Fred and Pfriends of Pfred.
7. Why was the rule so uniquely interpreted and enforced at CAL? Never got fully to the bottom of that. The removal of the Q and A from the FAA website really had a chilling effect on any further discovery.