Originally Posted by
AxlF16
So yes, if we furlough a lot of pilots and then merge - damn near ALL of us will probably get screwed in the SLI process. But don't forget that the company has a lot to lose as well. Kirby has a lot on the line - he's a young CEO and is very competitive and concerned about his success. He saw first hand how benefits accrue to the entire enterprise when the pilot group is happy (or even complacent), now I'm expected to believe he's not concerned about the impact of ****ing off the only part of the pilot group that hasn't already gotten f'd? No way. I don't know how much $$$ he's willing to put behind it, but it's surely more than we know right now. He's a gambler and he knows that pilot groups ALMOST ALWAYS FOLD. We may only have a pair of 10s while he has a huge pile of chips on the table, but it's very possible that he has a pair of 9s.
If you don't say no to concessions now, then you never will. You might as well admit it and get comfortable with the impact it will have on the rest of your career, because Kirby knows it.
I'm not sure if it's really folding if we're playing in a casino that has literally collapsed around us. Also not worried about factoring in Kirby's ego or what he "has on the line" as a valid consideration. If we're going to talk in terms of gambling, it seems the bet is built around stemming short term losses and hoping for a quick (at least partial) recovery sometime this next year that we can act on.
We don't know any more than rumors about the TA yet so even if it's somewhat accurate there could be fine print that swings the needle firmly in one direction or another. We also don't know whether a recovery is going to drag out far longer, or about other wild cards like merger, CH-11 etc. For merger risks it would be miserable for us to dump about 3-4k pilots and join up with a group that's still whole and possibly averaging a decade or more younger than our average 20 year pilot. If we're temporarily dropping MPG but our value per hour of work is the same and there's a hard stop "snap back" date or something that's pretty ironclad (yeah I realize nothing is ironclad in a worst case scenario) I'd like to hear some level headed arguments either way after we all see the real language. I realize that is heresy for some. If my MPG is temporarily 30 or 50 (or whatever the number is) but I'm committed to a proportionally fewer number of work days, and it's tied to this specific emergency with a firm end date or trigger, that's a significantly different value to me than if I still work the same number of days as before.
The TLDR is blind FPLD is about as dumb as working for free out of the goodness of our hearts to save the day. Lets read the wording when it comes out and each make a rational decision after.