By my estimation, at the time of the rejection of RAH's offer, about 99% of the Frontier pilots preferred the RAH offer over what SWA had offered (i.e. staple). If SWA had come up with something equitable (according to integration precedents), which is to say something between date of hire integration and a percentage integration, with domicile protection, I think that probably 80-90% of the pilots would have preferred to go with Southwest. That all may be moot though, because I don't think that F9's union could have legally accepted ANY offer from SWA without a membership vote.

The most recent rumor I've heard is that the best that SWA would have been willing to offer, if negotiations had progressed, would have been DOH for longevity, and 1/2 of DOH (F9 longevity) for seniority. This would have put F9's most senior captains, who typically hold turn lines and only work 2-3 days a week, as moderately senior FO's. It would have resulted in hundreds of upgrade on the SWA side, and hundreds of downgrades on the F9 side. This is clearly contraindicated by the rules of equitable integrations, which state that there should not be a windfall for one group, at the expense of the other.

Historically, equipment size is the primary determining factor in how two seniority lists get merged. This is due to the fact that relative differences in pay scales between airlines are rather ephemeral (remember the grief that SWA pilots were getting back in 2000 for their industry-lagging pay), but relative seniority according to equipment is a fairly stable metric for seniority. Another rule of equitable integrations is the principle of trying to maintain seat position for as many pilots as possible. By these principles, any fair and equitable integration would have maintained the F9 pilots in approximately the same seniority position and seat. Every F9 pilot that I've talked to would have been perfectly happy to go to arbitration on the integration, while I would be that most SWA pilots would not have. That says something in and of itself.

Another downside of the SWA offer was that in addition to the 60+ pilots on furlough, several dozen more would have not been "bought" in the transaction, and would have been out of work, and SWA was rumored to not be willing to guarantee those pilots a seniority number. To its credit, FAPA didn't throw the junior guys under the bus, as often happens in situations like this.

Two important factors for me personally (call me sentimental) were the other 4000 F9 employees that would have lost their jobs, and the fact that Denver would have lost a great airline and brand.

As for whether we are better off now, I'd say that at the very least, the few pilots who are being recalled are better off, as are the dozens who would have been laid off after SWA parked 10 Airbuses. Beyond that, I'd say that it will take about 5-10 years to answer that one accurately, if we're lucky. I've only flown with 1 pilot in the last 3 months who was disappointed with the way things turned out.

Personally, my biggest concern is that historical precedent places furloughed pilots at the bottom of all the employed pilots. If that holds in this case, that puts the furloughed F9 pilots below everyone at RAH. However, every seniority integration precedent has been more or less a marriage of equals, where the furloughed pilots expected to be recalled into similar equipment to what was was junior when they were furloughed. That's obviously not the case here.

The whole process will probably wrap up by the end of summer, and then we'll see what the arbitrators deem fair and equitable.