Originally Posted by
Captainbfv
Look, anything is possible right? But, all I can say is based on what I'm hearing in my conversations, it appears that both sides want to seal a deal. As far as GU or National getting in the way, my understanding is that there was a serious conversation recently were RJ told the IBT to not meddle, or intervene or they WILL lose this pilot group to ALPA much, much faster. From what I was told, it appears the IBT was very receptive. As far as the company goes, I was also told that the leadership told everyone on their side to put their "guns" down, and lock down a TA. So I just encourage everyone to see what happens this week. My assumption based on the current information, we should see progress.
The acquisition announcement definitely changed the dynamic. Not to mention from what I heard the mediator is not going to entertain any impasse, or proffer talk. It is very clear to me now, that although we can blame the company, the fact remains that it was the NC that conducted themselves in a very amateur manner, and that their only goal/agenda was to achieve an impasse. That is absolutely dead right now. No more games. We're going to have to lock something down, even if it's "watered" down.
Like Nate said, and I've been saying on Whatsapp and FB, if we don't lock SOMETHING down, and soon, we will be negotiating from were we currently are for years. We are now in this position because of the absolute arrogance, ignorance, recklessness from short sided individuals that wanted too much instead of bringing actual progress and improvements. Their past comms said it all! It was just chaos, shifting the goal post, and narrative control. A whole bunch of half truths and nonsense almost got us iced out (AGAIN).
After THREE different mediators, it was beyond clear to me who was the real problem here. I was branded a company plant and other nonsense bc I called out their bluff. It is what it is... time for a TA ladies and gents.
I hope you are right Chapi but I will remain skeptical of management actually wanting to get a TA quickly. The merger is announcement is an absolute gift and every industry insider believes the regulatory process has no chance of messing this up because the only “competitive” implication is what to do ATW/RSW…one single route.
this will have absolute zero impact on pricing. So this deal, by all accounts is gonna close quickly. Two tiny airlines with no overlap whatsoever. Even Minny politicos aren’t screaming about it because Allegiant is better than some other airline that’s gonna destroy the MSP market.
so where does that leave us? With VERY little time to get a deal done which allows management to “pretend” to show some effort and bargain in good faith but not actually offer anything.
we will see, but management has 100% of the leverage and NOT doing a deal will be what the bean counters want to do. The savings in pilot pay will give them their sacred Op Margin: their one and true worship.
I just don’t see it but hope I am wrong. I hope management has learned that to truly be a big boy airline you cannot always pay pilots the bare minimum. The FAs seem to love their deal and management could have delayed that for years and kept them at rock bottom pay but they didn’t. So I’m open to the possibility I could be wrong, but I am very skeptical.
I’m rambling rambling so I hope you are right Chapi