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.
Most of us at NWA saw pay declines after the merger. The pay
rates did indeed go up, but reserve guarantee went from 75 hours to 70 hours. Minimum schedule guarantee also dropped. As a result, take home pay dropped for many of us after the merger despite the pay rate increases.
I know this doesn't matter much to this discussion, just correcting the record.
Carl