Originally Posted by
mastercraft
I don't deny that AT brings equity to the table. They are a hard-working, prefessional group of pilots who have been beaten down for years. That doesn't greatly change my opinions though.
If their pilots wanted better, they could have left for SWA, or anyone else. In fact, many tried at SWA(think hundreds...literally). Few were accepted. Hundreds of other AT pilots left for CAL, DAL, UPS, FedEx, Cathay, Emarites, etc. The ones who stayed now want in on a big piece of something much bigger than they ever could have reasonably imagined.
While I understand your tendancy to relate this to DAL/NWA, it just isn't an apples to apples comparison. I know some NWA pilots saw considerable raises...but certainly not 75-80%. The vastly superior schedules and number of days off weren't the case either. Not to mention that one surely wasn't four times the size of the other.
1) You're not going to be making inroads by arguing the AAI guys are lesser pilots because they were rejected by LUV, so you can take that idea, write it on a piece of paper, then crunch it up, and toss it into the waste-basket. It's another dead-end you're exploring here.
2) I relate this to DAL/NWA only in the sense that there is a psychological angle to this stuff. You never will get anywhere until you start truly understanding that the other side also has valid points, and you start working towards an effective solution. Not a win: a solution you can live with.
Maybe you're correct, and maybe you're more disparate than DAL/NWA. I don't know who had the quicker upgrade time, and I don't know who will score more points in their arguments. All I know, from my experience, is that you've got a lot of steps ahead of you before you can start getting a mental hold of this situation, which is the point at which you'll be able to make more effective arguments for your side.
Good luck.