Need to take your emotions out of it, and come to grasps with this: Water under the bridge is irrelevant. Who was struggling five years ago is irrelevant. Who has existed for 85 years is irrelevant. Who has been employed for 40 years is irrelevant. All of that is water under the bridge.

They are going to look at current status and future prospects. VX was profitable in the years before the acquisition. Could it stay that way? Hard to know for sure, that and it's smaller size (and thus higher vulnerability) may weigh into the decision. AS financial position could weigh into it.

Probably no extra credit for payscale disparity...

1) That's already fixed (remember, don't look in the rear-view mirror).
2) VX was in the typical startup life cycle of having voted in the union and commenced negotiations. They will get some benefit of the doubt on payscale for that.

Senior AS folks will almost certainly retain their coveted positions in the PNW, they are reasonably entitled to that. Most VX folks aren't really interested in that anyway, unless they happen to live there already. Most will continue to commute to the CA bases (commuting to PNW sucks), or live in CA and drive to work... not everybody likes rain.

And nobody is going to trade a bus for a 73 just to get the type rating...