Originally Posted by
sailingfun
It would be very rare for a arbitrators award to force someone out of the seat they hold at the merger. It can happen over time especially if a airline is reducing flying but if your stable or growing I would expect all the Airtran Captains will keep their seat.
Heyas Sailing,
You're probably right. If you go back to look at the "merger era" L&G@D" thread, there were some wild hyperbole about pay raises, better flying, who has more money, bigger airplanes and whatnot, and, really, none of that played into the final equation.
The arbitrators don't deal with "subjective", and they mostly won't deal with emphemeral contracts since that can always change. And they LOVE precedent, because that means zero risk for them.
My bet is close to what Fish said. Since a good portion of the guys hired before 94 are getting close to retirement, I'd bet that after 5 years, the SWA list looks like a relative solution anyway.
Nu