Originally Posted by Bjork

Outside the place where a CBA requires arbitration after a certain period of time in section 6, the NMB process has binding arbitration as the last resort before being released from mediation. If arbitration is offered, and both parties agree- the NMB will arbitrate the matter instead of releasing the parties in to a cooling off period. To my knowledge, there has never been a case where a carrier and the pilots union have agreed to NMB conducted binding arbitration, its just a black hole of the unknown and at that point the parties are invested in getting a thier agreement, and are willing to use strikes/lockouts to achieve it.