Originally Posted by
Learjet driver
I think you would be much happier with an SLI at SW. it would be a merger of equals. A United and JB deal would not be a merger of equals. The relative seniority SLI dream wouldn’t pan out.
Not happening anyway. United just announced they are hiring 4000 pilots between now and 2022. That wouldn’t be necessary if a merger with JB was on the horizon. Good news for anyone who wants to jump ship though.
M&A have 2 elements. Category/Class and Relative seniority. With a UA merger, or with any of the big 3 for that matter, there would be a fencing off of aircraft based on career expectations (Widebodies), then there would be an argument about the larger narrow body aircraft (75s). Besides the cat/class, you're looking at relative seniority and the only real arguing point there is how much of a longevity multiplier to you give the legacy airline pilots based on YOS. Once that's decided, you plug and play. This is over simlified but that's the 30K' view.
Again, I think a merger with JB and a Big 3 would still work out for the JB guys better. Especially the younger JB pilots. I still don't like the thoughts of a SW merger just because of the unknown and how they took in AT. I don't really care what condition of AT was in at the time of the merger. It might work out, but I wouldn't want the unknown factor they present.