Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Exactly, but he does not realize it. Frankly, he just does not understand the meaning of the term "status quo."

There were three legal strategies employed (1) Be the craziest man at the table and intimidate everyone for fear your side will go nuts like US Air did. (2) Throw crap on the wall and see what sticks and (3) A well reasoned approach based on status quo, which is relative seniority by category and status with everyone in position by seniority.

NWA's strategy must have watered eyes in the offices of Johnnie Cochran and the Rainbow Coalition. It was the perfect minority position play and was executed very well. Delta, as the larger group, had to remain rational to keep the whole deal from falling apart, so concession after concession was made to appease the NWA group. Then the arbitrator came along and made an unprecedented award which included crediting attrition as an equity. Delta writing the program for plug and play was every bit as much of an error as entering the "bloody glove" into evidence and letting OJ make a mockery of trying it on. (it at least distributed the legerdemain so that the most senior Delta pilots were hurt less than they could be in a straight award, which is what I guess they were thinking, or maybe it was just pride that made them blurt out "we can do that!" )

It is a remarkably dangerous precedent and complicates future seniority integrations as going forward each side will make increasingly preposterous promises of future performance in the hope an arbitrator will buy off on their vision of the future. Further, the other sides negative views on their "opponent's" projections will poison the negotiations and make long standing riffs between ALPA members.

In this business, no company can keep promises of future performance. It is a fact we need to fully realize, particularly in scope negotiations.

The award is a bad precedent because of the amount of speculative claims which subsequently formed the basis of the award. As I and others have pointed out, the theory of pull and plug has already been invalidated already by the early retirements. A cornerstone of the award did not even make it 8 months before being invalidated by subsequent events. The speculative nature of this award will be a problem for our profession and will haunt us again in the next corporate transaction Delta gets involved in. The NWA award is history, I'm over it. But we all need to realize the can of worms this poorly conceived award opens and the threats that are on the horizon.

In effect, the early retirements had the same effect on the NWA list as they have had on the Delta list. Send another ~ 1,200 out the door and things would be even by equipment and category which would be very close to status quo, imagine that.