Fellow ASA Pilots,

We just completed our summer MEC meeting with full attendance from all Reps, Officers and Staff.

Ironically, the meeting began on Thursday which marked the ominous anniversary of the announcement of Delta and SkyWest winding down our Delta flying.

A year later, as I promised last summer, here are the facts as we currently know them.

Jobs:

The good news took place early this past year, and that is; everyone who wants a job or needs one, while they sort out their futures, has one via the Integrated Seniority List (ISL). At the same time, Delta gave all of our pilots a bump in their interview process. Also, most all of the ALPA carriers have joined in giving our pilots a leg up, be it formally or informally. The most recent and most profound has been our friends at Kalitta Air.

A big debt of gratitude to our senior labor relations counsel, Terry Saturday, for working with Kalitta Management and Doug Pearce, the Kalitta MEC Chairman, in orchestrating this event last week. When the Kalitta Team debriefed us, prior to heading home, they couldn’t say enough about the spirit and character of the ASA Pilot Group. As recently announced, they will be returning for round two in September for those who may be interested.

HQ Relocation:

The Headquarters for ExpressJet is going to be relocating; although, for the foreseeable future, ExpressJet HQs will remain in Atlanta. The Company is currently looking for property in the vicinity of the Atlanta airport. They will announce the new digs as soon as the deal is firm.

New Mainline Partner:

Although rumors have been plentiful, and deals may have been discussed under the veil of non-disclosure agreements, we, as a labor group, have never been contacted by any mainline carriers about any confirmation of a purchase or partnership. With that said, we remain the sole property of SkyWest, Inc.

I also want to assure everyone, when your MEC has been tasked with propagating any possibilities, we have done everything that has been asked of us in a professional and diplomatic manner. In fact, over this past year, no one can say that your MEC is a reason this pilot group has not received more concrete positive news from the Company.

New Planes:

Again, rumors be darned, the only new (new to us) aircraft that we can confirm, is the 20 CRJ-200’s recently announced by the Company. I can say, however, opportunities are being discussed concerning the possibility of future dual class aircraft. Unfortunately, however, all we can currently count on is the CRJ-200’s.

United CPP:

Look for an announcement from the Company on how the ASA Pilots will flow into the CPP. As of our meeting, they still had no firm information for us concerning this program. This is not our management team holding back. This program belongs to and is controlled by United. Greg and his crew can only give us the information as they get it.

Training Freezes:

Greg has assured us there will be no training freezes associated with transferring to the ERJ side or training on the 200’s.

Contract Negotiations:

This one gets complicated… The Company has increased the pace of Section 6 negotiations. As with a lot of things over the past year, there has been a lot of waiting followed by an urgency, to get it done.

The ASA MEC’s original intent was to do a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA) with the LXJT Team. Here’s how that works: Under the Umbrella Agreement, in order to do a JCBA, both MEC’s and the Company have to agree on it. If any of the groups decides individual CBA negotiations are more in order, then there are no JCBA negotiations. In this case, the LXJT MEC directed their Negotiating Committee to negotiate amendments to their CBA.

Their reasoning is that all of the pilots, via the ISL, will eventually end up under the XJT contract. Therefore, they felt they had a better knowledge of their current contract and knew best how to improve on it.

So, our MEC directed us to move forward with amending our CBA to cover the ASA Pilots who are and will remain under our contract for the next five to eight months. Our negotiations will be less complicated as we will basically be proposing our current contract along with “me too” language concerning pay and benefit improvements that may be negotiated and implemented with the agreements reached by the LXJT Team.

The LXJT Team passed a proposal to the Company last week and are expecting a return pass early next week.

Final Thoughts:

This is the state of our airline. Not what I had pictured, hoped and prayed for a year ago.

Although I still have hope that a brighter future and new and bigger planes are on the horizon, I’m not as optimistic as I once was.

As I have advised you over the past year, we all have to make decisions based on what is best for our futures and the future for our families.

That said, it is with a heavy heart and a quarter century of my life in the wake, I will be leaving our airline in the not too distant future. I too have to do what is best for my beautiful family.

I’ll be around for another couple months as we transition the structure of the MEC and prepare it for approval from the REPS. However that works out, I will leave you with a strong team to finish the entire group’s transition into the ERJ world or whatever path you may choose.

I will be in touch as this develops.

FAITHFULLY,