Originally Posted by
flysnoopy76
I agree with all this and what AKCattlecarrier says, I cannot for the life of me understand why an Alaska pilot, other than maybe a commuter out of the islands would want this merger.
Boggles my mind the newer pilots I fly with are excited about it, yet they complain about the current stagnation. The merger is not even approved and we are getting almost monthly email threats of downgrades and displacements. I have no idea of the time frame, but I think it’s a safe bet if this goes through, the 717, 321, and 330 are gone as quickly as they can make it happen and HNL shrinks substantially, despite all their unicorn and rainbows rhetoric. If this merger is approved it will make the current level of stagnation at Alaska look tolerable.
This is a fixed AS mindset. I understand why you have it, how it was developed and imprinted in so many people who have been at AS for a long time. That being said, you are assuming that AS is buying HA under the same plan as VX and that is simply not the case. HA isn't even a competitor to AS. They don't threaten AS anywhere, there is no need to buy this airline to shrink. You are also assuming that AS doesn't plan to grow, which they do. There will be trimming the fat like any merger but what you are proposing is once again, spending billions on an airline just to X it from existence. At no point during the AS/VX merger did hiring freeze for years even when VX was erased. We still need pilots, we still need airplanes terribly, and both airlines have growth projections.
We are also not getting monthly downgrade and displacement threats. We did get one because management can't figure out how to staff with PBS and the new reserve rules. We cannot be overstaffed at the same time as canceling flights due to lack of proper staffing...