Honestly, they don't really have a contract, because they don't have a union to back it up.

Its also important to note that the contract was "negotiated" and sold to the masses by management cronies. Their "union" is still filled with the same types because if anyone who is not sympathetic to management runs for union office they are just terminated.

I believe that the contract was easily sold as "industry standard" because of 2 points:

1) It came with a "union" and management sympathetic union officials that said it was an industry standard contract. All of the sudden they guys who are over there can say, "everything's ok, we're union now", but don't get ANY of the benefits of a union. Well, except the lanyard and stickers to fool other pilot groups into accepting them.

2) They got a raise in pay. Pay is not the only thing that makes a contract "industry standard". If it were, TSA would have settled their contract a LONG time ago. Even so, they were selling the pilots a raise in pay over the below average 50 seat rate they were getting at the time. Thats an easy sell to an already underpaid, unorganized pilot group.