Originally Posted by slowplay

Really?

Not.

USAirways went bankrupt. Twice. Went through the courts. Twice. What types of bankruptcy returns did they get? Twice. Oh, they started the process as the highest paid pilots in the country (for two months).

UAL went bankrupt. Their group learned a little from Airways. Their management still got two bites at the apple, but they got bankruptcy claim of $3 billion for their pilots (I think it paid 23 cents per dollar or less than $700 million) and a $550 million dollar note covering about 9200 pilots when their pension was terminated. They started the process as the second highest paid pilots in the industry.

When Delta went bankrupt we called for a summit of everyone who had been down that path. We negotiated a claim that paid $1.2+ billion in cash and a $650 million Note that was distributed among 6800 pilots. We started the process (pre-LOA 46 bankruptcy avoidance contract) as the highest paid pilots in the industry.

Everyone that chose to "fight" got their contract rejected. The AFA at NWA even got a court decision that screwed all of organized labor because it precludes the right to strike after a contract rejection. Brilliant. It's real easy to say "If ALPA would have told the company that we have contracts and are not willing to negotiate, we might have taken some pay cuts and still lost some pensions," when they're not yours to lose. You had no skin in the game, and the real world results don't match your rhetoric.

Oh, Hawaiian's creditors and shareowners were paid 100 cents on the dollar. Their bankruptcy wasn't exactly comparable to everyone elses. Their primary competitor Aloha wound up liquidating.

APA was first and early to the concession stand, undercutting most other legacy contracts beginning in May, 2003. That 23% pay reduction from their C97 rates (along with that from the rest of labor) allowed AMR management to avoid bankruptcy. A couple of other major carriers didn't participate in the pre-911 bargaining cycle, so they were frozen at rates substantially below those that led the way to bankruptcy.