I can assure you the DOH rumor for the top 30% is false. In fact there is no list at all as of Monday morning and it does not look like there will be one tomorrow. DOH is not part of ALPA merger policy and neither side opened or asked for DOH in the prior merger talks. NWA'a opener was in fact far worse then DOH for Delta pilots. The merger will follow the conventional route. We will both sit down and try and work out a joint contract with the company. At the same time the merger committees will begin SLI talks. If a list is not agreed on then it will go to mediation. If that does not work it will go to Arbitration. Per the Delta pilot contract if there is not an agreement within 1 year the company can force it to arbitration at that point. Arbitration itself can take from 1 to 2 years depending on availability of the arbitrators and how fast they render a decision. I would expect we are looking at at least two years for a combined list. Until that point the airlines will operate as separate operations. If the list does go to arbitration the arbitrator must use the tenets of ALPA merger policy. They are as follows.

merger representatives should attempt to match equities
to various methods of integration until a fair and equitable
agreement is reached, keeping in mind the following
goals, in no particular order:
“a. Preserve jobs.
“b. Avoid windfalls to either group at the expense of the
other.
“c. Maintain or improve pre-merger pay and standard of
living.
“d. Maintain or improve pre-merger pilot status.
“e. Minimize detrimental changes to career expectations.”

Clearly there will be major differences on each side on how to follow those tenents. I would give it less then a 10 percent chance of not going to arbitration.