Here are some insights from the last merger from the point of view of a VX guy:

The process is incrediincredibly slow. Today, with DOJ approval, we passed the first major milestone. Next is JCBA, then SLI, then unified ops, and at the very end, we finally get to cross bid. By the time this is over, you won't care to read any updates. It'll all seem boring AF.

The AS VX merger was approved in early 2016. It took three years (july 2019) before pilots could bid the other company's equipment and seven years for Alaska to completely swallow Virgin (got rid of the last Airbus in fall of 2023).

Working that math forward from today we can predict that the earliest pilots from this merger could switch into each others bases and bid new equipment is fall of 2027 and the fleet rationalization won't be fully complete until the fall of 2031. If you had a baby this summer, she'll be in second grade by the time the dust from this merger settles.

We might see JCBA by mid‐2025 and SLi by the end of next year (not a prediction, just a guess to make a point). The JCBA will likely be rolled in over time, maybe years, and the SLI won't matter for a few years because we won't be cross bidding till 2027.

For most of us, we won't feel the effects of this merger until the next president is at the end of her term. Between now and then there will likely be massive world events, economic changes, etc. The point being: this takes a long time. The stuff wweworry about on these forums won't matter as much as you think. People will drop off of the seniority list, plans will change, management will change, the cities we serve will go through changes.

When the VX AS merger happened, I was at 27٪ on the VX seniority list. SLI dropped me to 31٪ on the combined list. Now, eight years downrange, I'm around 16٪. It was all slow‐moving change, nothing that rapidly jolted our family or income. Other than suffering through five years of line bidding (which got fixed in May) it's all been an upward trajectory.