Originally Posted by
aa73
Spanky,
Reading a little history goes a long way. Past merger precedent - ESPECIALLY with two ALPA airlines - will show you that they typically go with Date of Hire. If not DOH, then by ratio or slotted integration. merger, where Empire pilots all got tacked on to the bottom. (Was An ALPA/ALPA merger RARELY gets any staple, except maybe the Empire/Piedmont Empire even ALPA?)
US/AWA are both ALPA, therefore the deal will go to arbitration (as it should be with all mergers.) One notable exception - Pan Am and DAL. Both were ALPA, and yet DAL only took the Pan Am Airbus pilots, while tossing out the senior and junior Pan Am pilots to the unemployment office. However, the argument can be made that this deal was only an asset acquisition, not a merger.
To be more acccurate from above. Piedmont was a Major Airline.
Empire was basically a commuter Airline (read low pay, no work rules and no reitrement)that flew small 65 passenger Jets (F-28s). When Piedmont bought Empire the intergration was not quite a Staple Job as you implied. The Empire Pilots did go to the bottom of the Overall Seniority list, but the Kept their F-28 Seniority #'s. In other words if the Former Empire Pilots stayed on the F-28 they kept their original Empire Seniority.......on the F-28. If they bid to bigger paying airplanes (Piedmont had 737's and 727' 767's at the time) they went to the bottom......Very few complained too hard because the got a Big pay raise, did not lose F-28 seniority and were now working at a highly desirable Major Airline .....Piedmont, that is it was desirable before USAir bought them.:
