Just to point out there is no plan whatsoever to operate NWA as a subsiderary as several keep saying on these forums. It amazes me that even after 95% of the news articles on this merger have turned out false intelligent people still latch on to each new article and take it as gospel.
What Delta was going to do was merge the airlines the way all airline mergers have been done in the past. You annouce the merger. The company talks with the two unions about a joint contract and the unions go through the seniority list process. When you have a list and a joint contract operations are then merged. There is always a period of separate operations in every merger until those steps are completed. That is all that is going on here. Neither DALPA or NWA ALPA would permit or allow separate operations and both have contractual language to prohibit that from happening.
With Delta management possibly making the choice to due this merger the traditional way without the pilot issues solved upfront they approached DALPA to waive some of our scope provisions that NWA did not have. Without those waivers the merger gets very expensive upfront. They can still due it however the cost will just be higher. DALPA as they have the last few times the company asked for contractual relief is demanding contract improvements. Nothing new here and no plot against NWA pilots. In fact this allows the process to play out as NWA has wanted and it will go to arbitration. The change is the company will not agree to the original joint contract since they don't get the benefits of having a combined list upfront. The original joint contract had 3 out of every 4 dollars going to the NWA pilots. They can give similiar terms to the Delta pilots for far less money. Once the SLI process has run its course and we have a list then operations will be merged and there will be one contract.
Having said all that it appears that DALPA and NWA are once again talking about a joint list so that may change the plan once again. It will be a busy weekend and something may come out next week.