Originally Posted by
FXLAX
ALPA National does provide resources, institutional knowledge, and tools to the MEC, LEC, and individual members. I’ve personally been represented by a ALPA national attorney on a personal grievance that the MEC attorney couldn’t have because lack of knowledge in that specific issue.. And now I’m currently availing myself to ALPA Aeromedical. Again, this all at the individual level.
So yes, absolutely yes, ALPA National does do much at the individual airline and member level. If you ever become an ALPA status representative, they send you to rep school. There you learn of all the vast things ALPA does behind the scenes. I wish they would show that part of the presentation to all new ALPA members so they wouldn’t have the same misconception that many like you have, (at no fault of your own).
The ALPA umbrella provides a lot of services to individual pilots, maybe better than what APA provides? I don't know.
In context of this discussion, ALPA national isn't going to come in and "fix" your MEC or straighten out your relationship with management, or negotiate a better covid deal for you. I can only think of one time in recent decades where national intervened in MEC contract negotiations by declining to approve a contract at a bottom-feeder regional.
I like ALPA, no complaints at the major, but it might not fix what ails you right now. I'm not saying it's not a good long-term move, but only APA pilots can make that call. If AA gets into an M&A at a disadvantage with the M&A partner then it would probably be best to be ALPA since all the likely partners are ALPA, and they do have some rules for SLI.