Originally Posted by copy

Yeah, after initial view of the AIP bullet points I was a hell yeah this is great. But I’ve transitioned to an almost certainly no, but will wait and see, just to make sure. And the fear and sales job I've gotten from reps lately has made it worse. “We will furlough 20-25% if we vote no.” “They can do the deal anyway by growing from the April block hours for the 12 month lookback (when questioned about the CBA requirement to grow the seniority list, it was a “they will just hire enough to grow it to be compliant, then furlough them...so we need to just get something out of it while we can).” Highly doubt that.

I encourage everyone to call their reps and voice their opinions. The sales job you’ll get will go something like this:

1: if you’re in the bottom quarter you’ll get furloughed. Even if you’re ok, lots of our bottom 20-25% aren’t ok without this job, so we need to preserve all jobs, not just those who are ok getting furloughed.
2: the company is so emotional about profit sharing, they just won’t even entertain it. Also, a bird in the hand...2% is great!!
3: this isn’t section 6, this is crisis negotiation and we need to help the company get out of this mess and the AA deal is the best path to do it. If we show goodwill now, then they will remember when we are in section 6, and we can reattack the PS issue then (“yeah—when we have zero leverage, I’m sure they will relent then”).
4: this will generate a LOT of flying. It’s mutually beneficial — don’t you want that? If you’re a junior CA you can keep your seat. if you’re a junior FO you can keep your job. Winning all around.
5. we are in the worst crisis in history, we can’t be asking for stuff like that right now!

What they fail to appreciate, imo, is this: this deal is already public. Can you imagine if the deal falls apart because the company refuses to agree to our previous profit sharing formula? Or any other “industry standard” PS deal (unlike our garbage one that will never pay out, by design). The company leadership won’t tank the company (by undoing the deal) out of spite in my opinion. And if they do...ha! great. That’s their legacy and their future at stake. The BoD won’t let them do that anyway, not when this AA deal has already been publicized and approved by the DOJ/DOT and promises a lot of revenue and a viable path out of this mess for the company.

Also, the company can’t afford to furlough much despite the threats saying they will. The displacement and training required, especially now that we are 3 fleet, would be impossible for them to manage. One rep told me they would just park the whole 190 and 220 fleets and go single fleet and defer all the 220s and remaining 321 deliveries. No way. They are paying on the 190s regardless of whether they are parked or flying for several years to come...they couldn’t get out of their deals and they can’t sublease them because they have almost no street value. They’ve delayed all the future deliveries as much as they can—at least in the near term. They just can’t afford to park enough planes to furlough that many. The revenue hit in the recovery from a shrunken airline, the training cost to both shrink and grow (and lack of ability to train that many that quickly both directions), makes any large-sized furlough basically a nonstarter, at least without a bankruptcy to get out of some of the 190/old 320 leases and maintenance contracts.

Also, how many airlines have furloughed? And of those how many as a percentage of their pilot group? And we had the 2nd best balance sheet coming into this, one of the best positioned with our fleet and leisure heavy business model, were understaffed as it was, and you’re gonna furlough 20-25%? No way. Not gonna happen. Bring it. I’d love to get a WARN and furlough letter from joanna on the same day as the voting closes. That, along with a print out of my no vote, would be framed and proudly displayed.

Last...they can sell it to the other work groups by saying “the pilots got their PS back because they enabled this deal to happen by giving relief to their scope section, so they are responsible for helping save the company and grow in this deal with AA. We thank them for giving us this relief.”

Tl;dr: We asked, they said no. We need to demand, and in the meantime...we say no. Game of chicken. Who will flinch. Is it worth it? Will they furlough? Will they relent on PS? I don’t care. Furlough me. The union needs to grow some stones though and stop taking no for an answer.